master/slave cable setup

[shadow1100mfp]

on one computer i own, everything but the harddrive was replaced due to the spacer on the m/b melting and shorting the whole system.

the guy that did the work though, did it in a weird way. first, there are 3 ata (i think thats what theya re called) ports on the new m/b itself.

right now, one is going to the hard drive, one is going to a floppy drive, one is going to a dvd burner, single drive.

the one going to the dvd drive has a master/slave set up to it, and since i was wanting to add a second hard drive (well, 4, but for now 2) to the computer, i was wondering how i would set it up;

as of now, i think i would put the master part onto the main hard drive and the slave on to a second hard drive, and then use the cable that was originally connecting the hard drive to the m/b to connect the dvd drive. or would this be wrong?

another way i thought of hooking them up was to take the original hd and put the master on that, and the slave on the dvd drive, while using the single cable to hook up a second hard drive.

i'd love any help at all, so thanks.

and just a side question that i thought of while typing this up: is it possible to use a flash memory card as ram? i have several cards of various capacities, and it would make for a good project if i could somehow do it

[Deveant]

well im just gonna take it that ur Mobo is a 2 IDE / 1 FDD Mobo.

So ur setup for maximum file transfer should be.

IDE 1 - M: HDD (OS) S: Burner

IDE 2 -M: HDD (DATA) S: Burner

FDD - Floppy

Its best to have the HDD's on individual lines, so that when transfering btwn each other, they will get the most outta the bandwidth.

[shadow1100mfp]

well im just gonna take it that ur Mobo is a 2 IDE / 1 FDD Mobo.

So ur setup for maximum file transfer should be.

IDE 1 - M: HDD (OS) S: Burner

IDE 2 -M: HDD (DATA) S: Burner

FDD - Floppy

Its best to have the HDD's on individual lines, so that when transfering btwn each other, they will get the most outta the bandwidth.

thats what i thought! on my other posts some guys were telling me that hard drives only connect to eachother, and i was like no, they connect best one hd to a line, one burner to a line.

and i don't want the floppy anymore, i want to get rid of it, so i was thinking i could put one hd and one burner on one ide, one hd and one burner on the second ide, and then 2 hard drives on the fdd (if i could get a converter or something)

[Sparda]

On some older motherboards the BIOS would expect only HDs on one chain (chain 0) and only CDs on the other (chain 1). I haven't seen any modern boards that are like this (probably because they don't make them this stupid any more).

[Deveant]

haha thx for the info Sparda  :-)

@shadow1100mfp as for connecting HDD's to a FDD line, not possible sorry, ur about 10 or so wires short (my old IT techer would kill me for not knowing for sure) but im thinking its 34 wires in a FDD, and 42? in a IDE... then newer ones are about 84 coz of the grounding wires. (numbers probably arnt right :P)

[Sparda]

@shadow1100mfp as for connecting HDD's to a FDD line, not possible sorry, ur about 10 or so wires short (my old IT techer would kill me for not knowing for sure) but im thinking its 34 wires in a FDD, and 42? in a IDE... then newer ones are about 84 coz of the grounding wires. (numbers probably arnt right :P)

Not to mention there is probably clock timing difference between the two, likely significantly transfer speeds and the BIOS expecting FDD, ZIP/JAZZ or tape drives on the connection. So no, get a SATA PCI card.

[shadow1100mfp]

@shadow1100mfp as for connecting HDD's to a FDD line, not possible sorry, ur about 10 or so wires short (my old IT techer would kill me for not knowing for sure) but im thinking its 34 wires in a FDD, and 42? in a IDE... then newer ones are about 84 coz of the grounding wires. (numbers probably arnt right :P)

Not to mention there is probably clock timing difference between the two, likely significantly transfer speeds and the BIOS expecting FDD, ZIP/JAZZ or tape drives on the connection. So no, get a SATA PCI card.

ill look into that, but for now, i have 3 other computers i am working on (one being setup as a file server, one as a media center computer, and one basic computer that im hoping to sell), i was just interested in how i would go about that.