Problem having HDD and CD drive on same IDE cable?

[dominican2589]

My computer has two IDE cable which was split between one for 2 harddrive and 1 for 2 CD/DVD drives. I want to add another harddrive and can do without having both CD/DVD drives. Is it ok for me to set the harddrive as a master and one of the CD/DVD drives as a slave on the same cable?

 

[oldskool]

Yes, you can. But make sure the hard drive is on the end and not the middle.

Alternatively, if you were to use a Cable Select cable, it wouldn't matter which one was on the end and middle. The cable select feature would do the selecting. Since you are using IDE cables, then you can do it the way you said.

 

[KSoD]

If you already have 4 devices hooked up to your IDE cables then no. IDE can only handle a maximum of 2 devices per cable.

So unless you have SATA or wish to as a expansion card for IDE or SATA then no you can not add another hard drive.

 

[oldskool]

I thought he was implying that he would take one CDRom drive out and replace it with a HDD.

This is why I thought that, Mak.

I want to add another harddrive and can do without having both CD/DVD drives. Is it ok for me to set the harddrive as a master and one of the CD/DVD drives as a slave on the same cable?

 

[KSoD]

If he got rid of 1 then yes. Just replace the master on the 2nd channel.

 

[dominican2589]

So I cannot have the hdd in the middle even with setting the jumper to as master and the CD/DVD drive jumper as salve? Because of the way my case is, my hdd would have to go under my CD/DVD drive and then the IDE cables, the end one would have to go into the CD/DVD drive and then the middle to the harddrive.

 

[KSoD]

As i said if you remove a Optical drive it can be done. But if you want to do it with keeping both Optical Drives then you can not.

 

[Lexluethar]

Moot point, but you should avoid putting a CD drive on the same IDE cable as a hard drive. It isn't going to break anything, just make your hard drive a bit slower.

As Mak said you will have to take one CD drive off. There are two ways of doing this. If you have both drives on the same cable ensure both jumpers are set to cable select and put the hard drive at the end of the chain and the CD drive in the middle. The other way (and probably the sure-fire way of getting this to work AND being able to have the hard drive at hte bottom and the CD drive at the top where most people have their case configured) is to set the jumpers, HD set as master and put it in the middle of the chain then set the CD as slave and put it at the end.

Sorry, probably WAY over explained that.

 

[oldskool]

Yes, you can. But make sure the hard drive is on the end and not the middle.

*NOTE: I was thinking of an 80-wire cable, not a 40-wire. I had to go look this up. Man, I thought I was crazy for thinking the hard drive went on the end and then Lex posted that the hdd goes in the middle.

 

[dominican2589]

Lex, not over explained. actually very helpful explanation. thanks everyone