Slave Drive-Master Drive: CONFUSED!!

[tape]

Some time ago, I added a second HD to my PC. The IT guy at work asked me if I set it as a SLAVE drive. Not wanting to appear clueless, I said I just plugged it in as it came. Works fine-it is what I back up my documents to. I just got a replacement DVD burner and upon reading the DIRS for installation, I am again confronted with Slave & Master. When I look at the location of the jumper blocks on my current DVD reader and CD reader, I see they are different from the suggestions from my new DVD burner. I've googled the topic, but I've yet to find a REAL simple and clear explanation of what these terms mean in relation to drives, especially with CD & DVD drives. Someone please talk to me like they would to Grandpa Joe, who knows how to program a VCR and is interested in knowing how things work. Happy New Year to One and ALL!!

[EzyStvy]

Guessing you're using IDE cd/dvd drives. (they use the gray ribbon cable)

The drive on the "end" of the cable needs to be set as Master. The other one should be slave...It won't make a whole lot of difference, but which ever one gets used the most should be the Master.

Depending on the cable - both can be set to CS. (cable select)

[kram 2.0]

There really isn't much to it, unless you want to delve into the architectural aspects of it. A single IDE cable allows two IDE drives to be connected. Within those two, you must establish a "hierarchy" - master or slave. For 40-wire 40-pin IDE cable, which is not used as much lately, you must jumper each drive to its correct setting, then connect the drives. For 80-wire 40-pin cables, you should adjust each drives' jumpers to "cable select" (CS), then connect what would be the master drive to the end, and the slave drive to the center connector.

Usually, you should have similar drives (Hard drives vs. opticals) on the same IDE cable, though not theoretically required. As long as everything works and all the drives show up in your BIOS, you have nothing to worry about here.

kram

[pam123]

Some time ago, I added a second HD to my PC. The IT guy at work asked me if I set it as a SLAVE drive. Not wanting to appear clueless, I said I just plugged it in as it came. Works fine-it is what I back up my documents to. I just got a replacement DVD burner and upon reading the DIRS for installation, I am again confronted with Slave & Master. When I look at the location of the jumper blocks on my current DVD reader and CD reader, I see they are different from the suggestions from my new DVD burner. I've googled the topic, but I've yet to find a REAL simple and clear explanation of what these terms mean in relation to drives, especially with CD & DVD drives. Someone please talk to me like they would to Grandpa Joe, who knows how to program a VCR and is interested in knowing how things work. Happy New Year to One and ALL!!

First a little history.
Master, Slave and Cable Select are all jumper settings for IDE (PATA) drives.
Master-Slave is the original and Cable Select came along later when the newer 80 wire cables for IDE drives came out ( 80 wire is the smoother looking of the two types of wide IDE cables).
It determines which is the primary drive on a given motherboard connection, the one on the end, and which is the secondary drive, the one in the middle.
All Cable select means, when the drive is jumpered that way, is that now its position on the 80 wire cable determines whether or not it's secondary or primary and you can just plug it in, as you did.
The terminology is still hanging around so it's OK to refer to your back up drive as the slave.

SATA drives, which are now taking over from IDE (PATA) drives don't use that system as there is only one drive per-motherboard connection.

If your new burner has M,SL-CS (master, slave, cable select) in different positions then just move the jumper, it's no big deal.
I usually make the burner the master, either jumpered as such and on the end connector or if I'm using cable select and an 80 wire cable just connected on the end.
You have to remember that if you have another drive on the cable the system must match.
So either they're both Cable Select or you go back to using jumpers in Master and Slave.

It occurs to me though that you may have gotten an SATA optical drive by mistake.
In that case you should exchange it for a PATA drive .

[tape]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for all the info. My concern was that unless I follwed the install Dirs exactly I'd mess things up. I did the Master/Slave with the optical drives, but I am sure I just left the jumper as it was when I installed my HD. They are IDE, by the way.. As Kram stated, as long as they show uyp in the bios and work, things are ok.