help with hardware hookups-- primary vs. slave

[PrineFan]

Hi...

I am building a computer and thought i had it figured out, but now not sure....

I have hard drive, zip drive, DVD-ROM, and CD-RW, and floppy.

I think I know that hard drive goes to the PRIMARY IDE PORT, and is the master. My zip drive will be the slave on the same cable.

Then, on the SECONDARY IDE Port, my DVD-ROM will be my master, and my CD-RW will be the slave.

My questions:

1) Is this a good set-up as far as Master and slaves?

2) I was under the assumption that, on the E-IDE cable, one end plugs into the motherboard, and the other end plugs into the master, and the middle connection plugs into the slave. Is this right? Cause on the DVD-ROM installation guide, their diagram shows that the middle connector goes to the MASTER and the end connector goes to the slave.

So I hope someone can help me-- regarding these 4 devices-- which to set to master, which to set to slave, and which connectors on the E-IDE cables get connected where--does the middle connector go to slave or master?

I think I can handle the floppy myself 🙂

Thanks!

 

[cleverhandle]

Your setup sounds good. As far as the cables go, it doesn't really matter in most cases. Usually, you'll set jumpers on the drives that determine whether they are master or slave. But there's also a jumper setting called "cable select," where the drives get their master/slave info from their position on the cable. If in cable select mode, the drive at the end of the cable will be master and the one in the middle will be slave. If you just set the jumpers to the master/slave configuration you want, you should be fine no matter which position you connect them to.