What is "cable select"?

[Tremo]

On the back panel of my DVD drive is the 3 jumper positions for selection of master, slave, and "cable select". I know that the master/slave is all about. But what is this cable select jumper? Right now there is no jumper on the pins. Any info on this function? Thanks in advance!!

[Klae_Again]

I'm pretty sure that setting it to 'cable select' will cause the drive to be either master or slave, depending on what else is on that ide controller. For example, if you had a cd burner on that controller with its jumpers set to master, then the DVD-rom with jumpers set to cable select would configure itself as slave.
Or, if you set them both to cable select, the drive on the end would become master (I think), and the one on the inside would become slave.

Hopefully you'll recieve some more certain assistance.

[Rocketmech]

Actually , Cable select is more correctly, which connector on the cable a device is attached to determines which device is master and which is slave. The goal of cable select is to eliminate having to set master and slave jumpers, allowing simpler configuration. Cable Select requires a special cable. And both divices are jumpered as 'Cable Select' , and the cable is wired as such that the connector on the wire determines Master or Slave , so you could switch the drives without changing jumpers.

[Tremo]

Thank you! Now I know.