Just a thought on a single IDE cable re: a HDD as master and a CD/DVD drive set as slave to it. A guy I know that builds PCs on a regular basis and seems to know his stuff, claims that if you configure an IDE connection in this way, the HDD will only run at the speed of the CD/DVD drive, and furthermore, can cause operating problems. Anyone have an opinion on this? I must say that I have never heard of it causing problems and it does seem to be common practise, as I understand. Dave.
For improved performance, its best to give CD drives and HDDs their own IDE channel, putting them onto the same one can sometimes lead to slow performance when transferring files on the disk.
i think thats the way it used to be, but today your probably ok to put HDD's and CD / DVD's on the same IDE channel, if i'm wrong sorry, but i've never expirienced problem with HDD's and CD on the same cable, i think in days gone by slower IDE devices could slow faster IDE devices (to the speed of the slower device) but i'm sure i will be corrected if i'm wrong
If you are using one IDE cable for both the hard drive and optical cable, first attach the cable to the hard drive and then use the second connector for the optical drive. [link=http://www.smartcomputing.com/Editorial/article.asp?article=articles/2004/w1510/44w02/44w02.asp&guid=]How To Install IDE Cables[/link]
There would be a small hit on performance, but only if the CD-ROM was being used at the time. Theres only a certain amount of data that can go through a cable at one time. An audio CD playing would take a small chunk away from the hard disk for example. To be honest though, it's not something to loose your hair over
