Slave IDE hard drive oo the same IDE cable with master DVD?

[dastott]

Hello. This may be a simple question to answer but I'm quite a newbie at building my own PCs so please bear with me.

Can I attach a slave IDE hard drive to the same IDE cable that has the DVD burner set on the master? I can see the grey connector for slave but I'm wondering if this will work OK with my PC. Thanks...

[redwudz]

Yes. Set the HD jumper to 'slave'. I would normally put the HD in the master position and the DVD as slave, but either way would work.

[isogonic]

iam sure it will work but that may not be the best way to do it. i always keep my hds on the same channel as master, slave and other drives on secondary channel as master,slave. of course it gets more complicated the more drives you have. wait for other people to answer the post.

[smearbrick1]

Or... just install them on separate IDE channels (if you have more than one) as masters. I always install my hard disks on one (primary IDE channel) and my optical drives on the other (secondary IDE channel).

[dastott]

Thanks for the quick replies. The problem is the drive was a present and is Ultra ATA not Serial ATA which my motherboard prefers. So it looks like the only option is to connect it to the DVD burner IDE cable because this cable's slave connector won't reach to the floppy drive to combine the DVD burner and floppy on the same cable. Howver, it seems this setup isn't the best. nt what way will performance suffer?

I don't have enough IDE slots on the MOBO basically as this new drive is my fourth HD in this case.

[budz]

Thanks for the quick replies. The problem is the drive was a present and is Ultra ATA not Serial ATA which my motherboard prefers. So it looks like the only option is to connect it to the DVD burner IDE cable because this cable's slave connector won't reach to the floppy drive to combine the DVD burner and floppy on the same cable. Howver, it seems this setup isn't the best. nt what way will performance suffer?

I don't have enough IDE slots on the MOBO basically as this new drive is my fourth HD in this case.

Floppy drive on the same ide cable as DVD??????????? I've never heard of a floppy cable being able to connect on a optical drive like a DVD burner.

To settle your situation just buy a PCI CONTROLLER CARD then hook up all your hard drives to it. That way you'll have your mobo IDE controllers available.

[redwudz]

I would just connect to new drive to the slave position on the IDE cable as I mentioned. Most newer motherboards can handle mixed speed drives on the same cable with very little loss in speed to either.

What do have to lose anyway? If it doesn't work the way you want, try something different. But I think you will have no problems. The alternative is to change all your cables around or do what budz mentioned and add another PCI IDE controller.

[otpw1]

Mine works fine that way.

[dastott]

Thanks guys...