Master V/S Slave #$@??

[Thor]

Dear Friends!!
I have a intel 815e Mother board with Mercury Vista Tower cabinet.
Have 2 HDDS [Seagate 40 GB 5200rpm and Seagate 80 GB 7200rpm] , have 2 optical drives [Liteon 16X DVD ROM + Samsung 40x/12x/40x CD-ReWriter]. I tried connecting the 40 GB HDD as primary IDE master, DVD ROM as primary slave, 80 GB HDD as secondary IDE master and Samsung as secondary IDE Slave. The Damned BIOS doenot recognise Samsung as Secondary Slave@@. Only recognises 1st three.

---------------------
Then I tried exchanging the 80 GB HDD AND Samsung. This time the HDD is again recognised as Secondary MAster and Samsung doenot show up.
---------------------
When I connected the 2 HDDS as primary master and primary slave , the two opt. drives as secondary master and slave it showed up fine!!
-------------------
Each of both IDE Cables have 3 80-pin jacks on the cable. The blue one goes as Primary IDE CAble and the blue end connects to the Motherboard Right? And out of 2 more jacks [or socket] the one at the other end connects as Master and the jack at the middle connects as slave.RIght?
The 2nd IDE Cable with all black jacks is the 2ndary IDE.
----------------
Let me know if I was Right with the above data. I'm in serious confusion right now.
-----------------
Thx in advance.

[grinning_devil]

...heeeeY~


ur rite abt the primary/secondry....
the blue/red colored connector is going to go into blue/red colored socket on the motherboaord....the next connector..i.e there on the middle of IDE cable is the slave..(primary slave in this case), nd the one thats on the opposite side of the colored one is primary master.

have u checked the jumper settings on all the devices..??
nd moreover its best if u keep the slow IDE ATAPI devices like CDRom/DVD ROM on a seperate channel...secondry master/secondry slave in ur case nd let the discs be on a dedicated channel...CD/DVD will slow down the performance if they work alongside IDE HDD...

i hope confusion is clear???!!

[amit_w]

I wud suggest that for Primary IDE you make 80 GB as Master and 40Gb as Slave(Make sure you got your Jumper settings right)

and Make DVD rom as Secondary Master and Cd writer as Secondary Slave, here again jumper setting is important

make sure u get it right(every ide device got a drawing of jumper schemes on them in form of a sticker, check it out if u dont know abt it)

[Thor]

Thanks for confirming.
The problem persists.
------------------------
Any Idea abt how much an IDE cable costs?
I ripped mine as a result of extra hard tugging.

[grinning_devil]

oooooooops.....!!!!
dont have an idea....but it wud be cheap enuf as far as guessing goes...!!

nd were u testing ur streangth on that poor cable?? !....wow....so much force that u broke the cable!!!

[tuxfan]

The cables are pretty cheap, don't worry. Less than 100 for sure. May be even less than 50.

BTW, the solution to your problem seems to lie in the right jumper settings. Check them out and confirm with the manual of each drive about its accuracy.

[drgrudge]

Originally Posted by Thor

Any Idea abt how much an IDE cable costs?
I ripped mine as a result of extra hard tugging.

it costs only 30rs. they are cheap.

And sometimes the HDD's will not be detected by bios, this has happned for me when i put in another HDD as slave.This has happned to me b4. So may be there is a problem with ur HDD( the HDD will work in other comp and perhaps wont work in ur sys).

[grinning_devil]

...hey have u tried updating ur BIOS????

try that too if u havnt tried...be CAREFULL while flashing BIOS...no power surges...interruptions of any sort shud be there while BIOS flashing process is done....

[Thor]

Got a new I cable, for Rs.30.
Will let u all know whether it works out or not.
@drgrudge : RIGHT HO! Thx.

[Thor]

Hmm Trouble Trouble Trouble!!
-------------------------------------
Primary Master M
Ptimary Slave S
Secondary Master:2P
Secondary Slave :2S
-------------------------
Attached 7200 RPM 80 GB HDD as PM and 5400 RPM HDD as PS.
Bios showed :
IDE PM -> 7200 RPM HDD
IDE PS -> NOne !!!
Exchanged the disk's posn, then
Bios Showed :
IDE PM ->7200 RPM HDD
IDE PS -> NOne !!

---------------------------
I thought maybe this is happening due to IDE Cable problem.
SO exchanged the cables of Primary IDE and Secondary IDE .
------------
Same Problem!!
-----------
Then connected,
PM-> DVD ROM
PS-> 7200 RPM HDD
--
2M-> 5400 RPM HDD
2S->CD writer
Bios Showed:
IDE PM->7200 RPM HDD
IDE PS->DVD ROM

IDE 2M->5400 RPM HDD
IDE 2S->CD Writer
-----
Felt Like Busting that blloooddddy BIOS!!
----
Went online and Checked the term "Connect" +"two" OR "2" +"Hard" +"Disk" OR "Drive" in Google.
A page from Driverguide.com had the step by step guide.
-----
Read it, pretty much did the same earlier, only neglected the term "Jumper Setting" [also mentioned in the forum by Tuxfan, amit_w and grinning_devil ] earlier. I had the term confused with the IDE Cable jack!! The drawing showed me what that damned piece of 2 pin connector was!!!
----
Went back and checked the JUMPER SETTING of both HDDS.
----
40 GB seagate 5400 RPM had "One Drive supported" enabled, so this was causing the problem. :roll:
But 80 GB 7200 RPM had "Cable Select" enabled .
----
With some trying changed the J Setting to :
40 GB -> Slave
80 Gb -> Master,
----
Connected 80 GB as PM
Connected 40 GB as PS
----

Bios detectd every thing F I N E !
--------------------
Now I SHUD BE HAPPY, NO ?
----
HA HA HA HA, Not so lucky!!
----
This many times of Juggling has caused the primary active partition of 40 GB HDD [which had Win XP] to become corrupt!! Bloody HELL
Now How do I Boot?
-------
USED FDISK, DELETED PARTITIONS , CREATED SOME, INSTALLED NEW OS!!!, .....
The day Concludes and I'm exhausted :roll:
-------
The next part of this boring story will not come up unless I manage to get Norton Ghost 2003 to image my primary partition [ Even it is throwing up error 36000 !!!]
-------
THX TO ALL 4 Helping me.
May The TECH LORD be with u!!
-----

[grinning_devil]

hehehe......what a DRAMA!!!!

at last its over..!!

everything that ends well is well....what do u say pal???!!!

PS---i along with others have been reminding u of checking the jumper...jumper.....nd jumper......!!

[tuxfan]

@ Thor : Phew!! I got tired reading all that you had written. I can imagine how tired you must be actually doing it

But well, as long as it started working, you wouldn't mind the trouble

[grinning_devil]

tiredness....???...if in the end everything is working fine then who minds sum tired bones...rite????

heeey ... tux ur just 1 short of 1000 posts!!! WOW man.....wherez the party eh..??

[tuxfan]

So here's the 1000th one! I didn't notice this count. Thanks to Thor and grinning_devil for pointing it out