ide cable question - need answer tonight please

[Sip]

Which plug is the master supposed to be on? Is it the one at the end, or the one near the middle.

Thanks

[toonerama]

Master at the end, slave in the middle.

[This message has been edited by toonerama (edited 12-17-2002).]

[Sip]

Thanks, that's what I thought but wanted to make sure.

[diminished]

CORRECT me if i am wrong on this.
the master slave option is determined by your drive's jumpers not the cable.because,the cable is passing the same info on the same pins.am i wrong on this?anyone?
another thing,you have a primary and secondary ide on your mobo.and could hook two drives on each one of them.each ide will handle master and slave on each cable with their two existing plugs,most of the time,unless you baught or have a separate cable.

[This message has been edited by diminished (edited 12-17-2002).]

[diminished]

Another thing to mention here.
i would think if a cable had a phisical master and slave differantiation plug,the manufacturers would at least ingrave or print some info on the plugs somehow.somehow the question woke me up.

[Pretty Pretty Cyanide]

Newer drives usually come shipped in Cable Select flavor. So what Toonerama said is true.

But you can assign your own master and slave if you want\need to with those jumper settings. And most harddrives do have a legend written ontop the drive. You shouldn't let such things keep you awake at night.

[+Erik.+]

well actually there is no 100% rule anymore.

older cables always useed to be master at the end and slave in the middle. however these days i've found cables that are the opposite which caused all manor of problems.

i had a problem where one of my drives was taking over 1 minute to auto detect.

i checked my cables through and they were all set the same way. When i paid special attention to one of the cables the master had to be set in the middle and slave on the end!!!

what a headache that was.

and if you use cable select then it shouldn't matter but it's never worked for me.

[This message has been edited by +Erik.+ (edited 12-18-2002).]

[opetereit]

"deminished" is right. Normaly the cables has no special plugs for master and slave. If you want to use the "cable-select"-option, you need special cables with some of the wires crossed like you can see on floppy-cables. Because normaly the IDE cables have no crossing the cable select don't work. You have to jumpe one of the drive as master and one as the slave, the direction of the cable don't affect this.
Oliver

[+Erik.+]

sorry but i completely disagree with that.

i've been building pcs since 1996 and the position of the IDE master/slave thing has always been a problem of the ide devices not being found in the bios, even though the jumpers are set correctly.

some of the cables i have even had MASTER and SLAVE positions written on them.

[thedreampolice]

I Also build and fix pc by day. 40 wire cable usually is master in the middle, slave on the end. 80 wire is usually master on the end slave in the middle, if your jumpers are set correctly.

[diminished]

I still dont understand it guys.are you saying the middle and the end plugs are connected to different pins?(SIGNAL FLOW)?
the way i know it or known,and i could always be wrong.the cable itself is sharing 2 drives and the plugs are like a parralel extension of that perticular cable.in another words,the cable has all the same pins connected to both plugs and drives,and the master and slave gets to be decided by the drives itself.
so please,do we have a doctorate in the house?
lets be logical,why the heck than,the mobo makers are not inbeding or puting a master and slave ide's on the mobo's separately according to what some of you are saying?

[knowdoubt]

Every drive I've ever gotten (& they've all been Maxtors or WD) explained quite clearly in the literature they shipped with how to set the jumpers on the drive to put it in cable select mode. All IDE drives I believe can be put in cable select mode in which the master/slave status is determined by it's position on the cable. No diminished, the plugs on the cables aren't terminated the same. There is a shorted pin or something like that on one (I forget the details) which allows for detection between them. I'm sure you could find all the details you want with a Google search.

[Sip]

I finally gave in and took my stuff to my tech. You know what... I'm always happy when I leave. He told me that he ALWAYS sets one drive to master and one to slave. He's told me that any other way can lead to problems.

Another note. He told me not to use the "master with slave present" setting. this can also cause problems.

About the end or middle of the cable question... I can't remember, but my system's working better now.

Have fun messing with cables. I vow not to open my case again for a long time... or at lease I'm going to try not to.

[knowdoubt]

I never use the 'cable select' option either. Use the jumpers to set master/slave, then you know you got it right.

[Pretty Pretty Cyanide]

Why? You are letting the cable select when you set it to 'Cable Select'. Which avoids setting Master to Slave and vice versa.

Setting the jumpers to M/S is good if you know they are infact M/S but most people don't. So cable select is a good setting if you don't know like this dude.

And as far as service techs telling you, you need to set Master and Slave jumpers himself he would make a fortune if he was your realtor.

[Sip]

Actually I trust my tech. I'm not a person who looks for the lowest price on gear. Yeah sometimes you may save $50 here and there, but I have piece of mind when I buy from him. He has a small business, just like I do, and his customer service is second to none. Last night we worked on my computer till 12:00 at night, and when I left I felt like I had been treated more than fairly.

Thanks Steve!

[knowdoubt]

Originally posted by Pretty Pretty Cyanide:
Why? You are letting the cable select when you set it to 'Cable Select'. Which avoids setting Master to Slave and vice versa.

Setting the jumpers to M/S is good if you know they are infact M/S but most people don't. So cable select is a good setting if you don't know like this dude.

And as far as service techs telling you, you need to set Master and Slave jumpers himself he would make a fortune if he was your realtor.

Why??? because it's just as clear (or unclear, whichever the case may be) what the jumper setting is for 'master/slave' as what the jumper setting is for 'cable select' (A jumper must be set on the drive regardless), so why not just set it to the master or slave position you want, then it doesn't mater what position it is on the cable, so there's no need to remember or hassle with confusion over which position is master or slave & no need to ask "like this dude".

About the only situation 'cable select' can be a convenience is if your doing allot of swapping positions of drives around from master to slave. With 'cable select' then you ideally just swap the cable positions around (if they reach) which could be easier in some instances than resetting the jumpers, which may be hard to get to on an already installed drive.

[Z13]

About the only situation 'cable select' can be a convenience is if your doing allot of swapping positions of drives around from master to slave.

Sure - exactly what I do, and I doubt that I'm the only one doing it, namely using removable hard drives.

I have three removable hard drive mounts (some using my RAID controllers as IDE controllers), so it's a lot easier to just have Cable Select selected on my hard drives without having to remember which mount is connected to the master or slave, much less having to open the case and change IDE cables every time I change a hard drive (which now takes ~5 seconds).

It's never been a problem.

//Stu