IDE help

[Josh42]

What are the advantages or disadvantages to putting two devices (like the hard drive and cd drive) on one 'primary' channel? I assume you could do this as long as they are marked master and slave respectively. The alternative I have in mind is putting the cd drive on the secondary ide channel. What are the benefits/cautions to doing it either way? Thanks.

J. Ciolkosz

[hd581]

If 2 devices are connected on 1 channel, only 1 of them can be active at 1 time. If 2 devices are on different channels, one of them can be read from, while the other is written to simultaneously. I think thats how it works...

[ghostface]

benefits include running less cable in your case, but that's about it. if you run a fast hd on the same cable as a slower cd-rom, i've heard that that'll slow down your hd. i know if you run a udma66 drive with a 33 drive even on a 80 line cable, it'll only run at 33.

[krusty the klown]

.... also, some CD ROMs (not all) get really upset if they're slaves, so you have to put them as secondary masters or if you have loads of IDE devices, buy an IDE controller card.