I'm 5 hours into building my first PC...I'm still lost...and trying to install 2 hard drives...

[rnmcd]

I'm 5 hours into building my first PC...I'm still lost...and trying to install 2 hard drives...

I have to install two hard drives (a 15GB for OS and software then a 30GB for files).

All that I can do without anymore assistance is install them into their bays.

My questions regarding installing these 2 hd's are:

1) can they share the same power cable? I realize there are two connectors on each cable but was wondering if 2 hard drives can share the same cable.

2) Can someone explain the Master and Slave relationship to me (if there even is one for my proposed setup)?

3) Will these two hard drives share the same IDE cable? Do they NEED to share the same IDE cable?

4) Will I need to re-configure the jumpers on these hard drives for my particular setup.

I think I can get through this. Your input is very appreciated. Thanks folks.

-rnmcd

 

[mosdef]

1. Each HD needs its own 4-pin power cable.
2. I think the Master might get more system resources. In any case, put the 15GB HD as the master I would say.
3. Yes, they share the same IDE cable. Look at the cable, there should be 3 connectors on it. There should be one on each end and then one closer to one of the sides. Plug the one that's farthest from the other two into the motherboard's IDE0 connection and then put the other end in the master HD and the one off some from the center in the slave HD.
4. There is usually a set of 6 pins, 2 rows and 3 columns. One is for auto-detect (I think), one is for master, one is for slave. Set the jumpers on the master to master, and set the jumpers on the slave to slave. If this information is not marked on the HDs then go check the manual.

Hope this helps. See what everyone else says cuz I might have told you wrong information somewhere.

-mosdef

 

[cparker]

Yes, if the power supply cable has two connectors one can be used for the hard drive, the other for the CDROM. The IDE cable should have three connectors. Plug one into the primary IDE connector on the motherboard. Set the hard drive for "master" (it usually comes that way); Set the CDROM for slave. (sometimes there is a jumper on the back of the CDROM that will say "slv" or something like that or else look at the manual. if you don't have a manual try to get to the CDROM manufacturers web site to find a picture of the jumper map, but it should be self evident.) Plug in the far connector of the ide cable into the hard drive. Now plug in the middle connector into the CDROM. If the cable can go either way on either the drives or the mother board connection, be sure the marked strip on one side of the cable corresponds to pin "1" on the drive or motherboard connector. This should be marked on your motherboard or on the diagram you got in the motherboard documentation. It also should be marked on the drives with a little "1" on one side of the connector. That should do it!

 

[Ulysses]

The above advice looks very good to me.

See this general guide:
http://www.giga-byte.com/gigabyte-web/faq_gt.htm
or
http://arstechnica.com/guide/building/

For hard drive setup you might want to first install just one drive until you're up and running OK. Leave a space for the second HD and install it later. Here's a guide to HD setup:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/solutions/0,8224,2586419,00.html

 

[Mday]

all wires lead into the powersupply, so you can put drives in any way you want in terms of power. HDDs do use a lot of power, so see if you can avoid it. I usually use one device (drive) per "line" until i run out, or if it cannot get there.

your 15GB for the OS should be master.

if you want master and slave, THEY HAVE TO SHARE the same cable.

you have to reconfigure the jumpers. see your manual or label on the HDD for details. or go to the manufacturer's website.

--

what other drives do you have that you want to install?

 

[Mday]

the jumper arrangement differs by manufacturer, especially if you have an IBM manufactured drive.

--

you know how to partition, right? logical, extended, primary...

 

[Prodigy^]

just to verify and add some stuff.....

1) can they share the same power cable? I realize there are two connectors on each cable but was wondering if 2 hard drives can share the same cable.

yes they can, you can use ANY connector in your whole case (that fits of course) and get power from there. the easiest is to use the two connectors that usually sit on one power cable, and use one for each harddrive.

2) Can someone explain the Master and Slave relationship to me (if there even is one for my proposed setup)?

it's probably got something to do with what HDD gets the most resources and priority. on the harddrive, next to where the power and IDE (flat, grey) cable goes in, you'll have to arrange some small plastic thingies over a set of pins. look carefully at the sticker that is hopefully slapped on the harddrive, and see where you should put these thingies and over which pins, to make it either master or slave. let one drive (the 15 Gb, since it'll be used for OS) be the master and the 30 Gb be the slave drive.

3) Will these two hard drives share the same IDE cable? Do they NEED to share the same IDE cable?

yeah it's the easiest, but they don't have to. but just do it, most people have it like this.

the master drive should get the flat, grey IDE cable connector on the edge of the cable, then put the connector on the middle of the cable, on the slave drive

4) Will I need to re-configure the jumpers on these hard drives for my particular setup.

see above.

now......when you install windows, it'll automatically make your harddrive ready (the master drive). you'll need to configure the slave drive (30 gb) by yourself though, here's how:


boot in DOS, and type:

fdisk.exe

now go through the menus, it should be logical enough. make sure your computer doesn't feck up during this process.

when it's done, you might have to reboot (can't remember), still in dos type:

format x:

with x: being the drive letter (will most likely be d: )

wait until it's done and now you should be able to see your drive just fine

 

[rnmcd]

Thanks everyone for the help. The (my) fog is starting to lift on this issue.

But I still don't have a complete understanding of the master and slave hard-drive relationship.

1) Do I need to set the drives up in that relationship?

2) Can I have two master drives?

3) Would I want two master drives or would I want a master and a slave drive setup? Why?

5) I also have a CD-RW drive and a 3.5" drive. Does the CD-RW need to be a master or slave drive in relation to another drive?

6) I am only basically familiar with partitioning. Do I need to partition either of these drives? If so, which software should I use?

Thanks for you invaluable help!

-rnmcd

 

[vailr]

Partition using FDisk, from the boot floppy. Since you're using a CDRW, best to keep it on 2nd IDE port, as master. This is to keep the CDRW from possibly forcing the HD to slower access when on same IDE cable. Enable "active partition" for each HD with only one drive physically attached, due to FDisk's limitations. Afterwards both drives can be hooked up with no problems, and each drive independantly bootable. Select which drive boots by bios setup: scroll down to "master" and change it's setting from "LBA" to "None". System will now boot from slave drive. Useful for repair of non-booting 2nd drives. Best to copy the OS installation files to the HD and install the OS from the HD.

 

[Radarman]

O.K. heres the poop. Your motherboard has two EIDE Ports. A primary and a secondary. You can have 2 devices on each port, the EIDE Cable
which will fit into either port has two connectors. Each port has a Master and Slave, you want you Primary drive C: ( with your operating system as Master on the Primary Port, I recommend you put your 2nd Hard Drive as Master on the Secondary Port, your data will transfer faster, if you put your 2nd hard drive as slave on the Primary port,
only one device at a time can run on the same port, one has to wait until the other is done. Put your IDE CD Drives as Slave on the Secondary port. Be sure when you fdisk the Primary drive you make C: Active, and when you format the C: drive you use C: /s to transfer the system files to it. Make the 2nd hard drive all an extended partition. You will be in business. Radarman

 

[dszd0g]

Motherboards have either 1 (really old), 2, or 4 IDE chains. On each IDE chain their can be either no devices, 1 master, or a master and a slave. Chains can be disabled in the BIOS. The more chains enabled the more IRQs wasted (Hey, I'm a SCSI person... I have to put in some pokes at IDE. )

Since an IDE chain can only access one device at a time you want to layout your system to work around this as best as possible.

If you have 1 hard drive and a CD-ROM drive and 2 IDE chains on your motherboard one would want to put each device on its on chain and have both set to master.

If you have 2 hard drives and 1 CD-ROM drive it depends on how you use your system. Are you more likely to be copying between hard drives or between the CD-ROM drive and one of the hard drives? Which one? Put the devices that are most likely going to be accessed at the same time on seperate chains.

For example if most of what you do is play games that use the CD-ROM drive and are installed on drive 2, put those two devices on seperate chains. In this case one would have Hard Drive 1 and 2 on the same chain, one set master and the other slave. I typically put the master at the end of the cable mainly for historical reasons (on really old motherboards one HAD to do it that way.) On the other chain one would have the CD-ROM drive set to master.

Hard drives do use a lot of power. This paragraphing is me babling and theorizing, skip it if you want. I can understand the arguement to put them on different cables if possible. When drives spin up it can cause a voltage drop and when they spin down a spike. Having them on seperate cables might minimize the effects on each other. I haven't heard of anyone hooking up a voltage analyzer up to one of these cables and monitoring the different affects. I have not heard of anyone having problems with 7200RPM drives or slower on the same cable. I have heard of people having problems with 10K and 15K drives on the same cable with weaker power supplies. Since the faster drives sometimes have noticable problems, that might indicate that the slower drives might be having problems we don't notice or we may hurt their lifespan when we put them on the same cable. Drawing the voltage in parallel instead of in series is probably better if possible. I'm not that great at the Physics involved. Do Kirchhoff's loop rules apply? His rules apply to closed circuits which I'm not sure this is? If his rules do apply then the voltage drop is spread accross all loops. If the hard drives are in series then the full voltage drop is experienced by the second drive in the series, correct? Any physicist or EEs here?

Are you are asking about if you have one connector can you plug in both drives into it? One can purchase power cable splitters if your power supply does not have enough connectors.



<< 1) Do I need to set the drives up in that relationship? >>



No. See above.



<< 2) Can I have two master drives? >>



If they are on seperate chains.



<< 3) Would I want two master drives or would I want a master and a slave drive setup? Why? >>



See above, it depends on what you are doing.



<< 5) I also have a CD-RW drive and a 3.5&quot; drive. Does the CD-RW need to be a master or slave drive in relation to another drive? >>



By 3.5&quot; drive what do you mean? Most hard drives are 3.5&quot; wide, so our floppies. Floppy drives have their own cable and connection to motherboards.

As far as your CD-RW drive, see above. If you have a CD and a CD-RW drive and want to be able to copy CDs between the two with out having to copy it onto the hard drive first you will need the CD and the CD-RW to be on seperate chains. Otherwise you will burn a lot of coasters. Again, burning from hard drive even the hard drive and the CD-RW should be on seperate chains, but this is not as critical. On most IDE systems no matter how powerful if you try and use it while burning directly from CD you can't use it. You can, but your chances of burning a coaster go through the roof. On a decent system you should be able to use your system while burning from hard drive. On a n a decent all SCSI system you can burn however you like and use it at the same time without burning coasters.



<< 4) Will I need to re-configure the jumpers on these hard drives for my particular setup. >>



Most likely. If you don't have the manuals for the drives you should be able to get the jumper layouts from the manufacturers website. A lot of drives these days have the layouts printed on the top or bottom, or in the case of SCSI IDs right above the jumpers.

 

[mitso1]

radarman gave you the right poop.
but, i would make the second drive active also.
that way the second drive would also be bootable.
you would pick which drive boots in the bios on startup.
good luck you are well on your way.

 

[Eli]

Here's some more poop.

• But I still don't have a complete understanding of the master and slave hard-drive relationship.
• Do I need to set the drives up in that relationship?
• Can I have two master drives?
• Would I want two master drives or would I want a master and a slave drive setup? Why?
• I also have a CD-RW drive and a 3.5&quot; drive. Does the CD-RW need to be a master or slave drive in relation to another drive?
• I am only basically familiar with partitioning. Do I need to partition either of these drives? If so, which software should I use?

Each motherboard has two IDE ports, and one floppy(3.5&quot port(generally). You can have a total of 4 IDE devices: Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master and Secondary Slave. Two drives per port.. If there is two devices on the same port, one must be set to master, and the other set to slave. It will not work any other way.



I recomend installing the OS on whichever drive is faster(7200rpm, etc), and putting it on Primary Master. You shouldn't have to change the jumper on this drive. Configure the 2nd drive as Slave, and connect it to the remaining connector on the cable. This of course, will be Primary Slave. Remember to watch Cable-Pin orientation(Red stripe..) Make sure your CDRW is set as Master, plug in the 2nd IDE cable, and hook your CDRW up. This will be Secondary Master.

Arrange your power connectors any way they'll A) fit B) look nice

Plug the floppy ribbon into the floppy port, and connect it to the drive. Red stripe usually goes towards the power connector.(Note: If floppy drive light stays on, cable is backwards).


Do you know how to set the drives up in the BIOS? Hit Del to enter setup, and look for &quot;Auto Detect Hard Disk&quot;, or something of the sort.
It should detect your drives.

Make a bootup floppy, make sure it has fdisk.com and format.com on it.Boot from the floppy, and run fdisk. Pick Yes on the Large Disk Support question. Select Fixed Disk 1. Pick Active. Do the same for the 2nd drive.(Select Fixed Disk 2, etc..)


After you partition, you'll have to format them.


Hope that helps. feel free to correct any misinformation guys..

 

[rnmcd]

Holy crap I've definitely just been schooled! Thanks for your help.

I wonder if I should just go with a larger capacity hard drive because of the potential copying conflict that could occur if I have two IDE devices on the same chain.

The reason I had originally chose two 7200rpm drives (one 15gb, the other 30gb) is to use the larger one to hold audio and video files; I want to do digital video editing on my PC and thought that a second drive to store the audio and video files might be a good idea.

The thing is I don't know how I will be accessing the drives.

1) If I put the two hard drives on one chain I won't be able to copy between the two drives, right?

2) If I put the CD-RW on the same chain as a hard-drive I won't be able to install software (from CD) onto the hard-drive on that chain, right?

3) Is there any advantage to me having 2 hard drives instead of one larger hard drive with all software, OS, and files?

4) What is meant by &quot;burning a coaster&quot;?


Thank you very much,rnmcd

-------------

Components for the PC I am TRYING to build:

Antec 830sx case
Athlon 700mhz--(OEM)
Global Win FLK32 (heasink and fan)
ASUS K7V motherboard WITHOUT audio--(Retail)
128mb Mushkin w/Siemens Infineon PC133 ram
15gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for OS and software)--(Retail)
30gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for files)--(Retail)
Teac 1.44mb 3.5&quot; floppy drive--(OEM)
Plextor 8x4x32x CD-RW--(Retail)
Matrox Millenium G400 dual-head card 32mb--(Retail)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live! MP3+--(Retail)
Altec Lansing ACS 45.2 speakers
Windows 98SE
Modem (haven't purchased yet)

 

[ElFenix]

1. if you put two hard drives on the same cable, you will be able to copy between them, but it will be slow. ide can only access one drive on each cable at a time. so it will have to read one, then write to the other. if they are on different cables, if can read one and write to the other at the same time.
2. since you can copy between two drives on the same cable, its will be alright.
3. the advantage of two drives is that copying between drives is faster than copying between two partitions on the same drive. also, if you were to do a clean install of an os (something that should be done regularly to prevent rot) you don't have to move all your files around each time. plus, if you put your swap file (overflow memory) on the most used partition on the least used drive, your computer will perform faster.
4. burning a coaster is when burning a cd fails for whatever reason. since cds look like coasters, this is where it comes from.

now, i assume that since you're working with large graphic files, etc., you're probably going to burn them when you're finished with them, correct? either that or they are originating from a cd to begin with? if this is the case, put your 15 gig drive on primary master, slave the cdrw to it. then put the 30 gig drive on secondary master or slave. not to be confusing but you can have a slave without a master. the only time you have to set one to master and another to slave is when you have two drives.

 

[rnmcd]

ElFenix-

I plan to burn the audio/video files to CD when I'm finished with them. So I can see the value of putting the CD-RW on a separate chain than the hard drive with the a/v file.

1) But will loading software be extremely slow if the CD-RW(I don't have a stand alone CD-ROM) shares the chain with the OS/software hard drive?

2) Likewise, if I put the two hard drives on the same chain and I'm working in a file, won't accessing the software program be slower? That does happen doesn't it (the working files do need to access the associated program, right???)?

-rnmcd

--------------------
Components for the PC I am TRYING to build:

Antec 830sx case
Athlon 700mhz--(OEM)
Global Win FLK32 (heasink and fan)
ASUS K7V motherboard WITHOUT audio--(Retail)
128mb Mushkin w/Siemens Infineon PC133 ram
15gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for OS and software)--(Retail)
30gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for files)--(Retail)
Teac 1.44mb 3.5&quot; floppy drive--(OEM)
Plextor 8x4x32x CD-RW--(Retail)
Matrox Millenium G400 dual-head card 32mb--(Retail)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live! MP3+--(Retail)
Altec Lansing ACS 45.2 speakers
Windows 98SE
Modem (haven't purchased yet)

 

[Eli]

Nahh, It's not like it would be molasses-slow or anything. We're just trying to help you set your system up Optimally. You can hook your IDE devices up any way you want too(provided correct master-slave relationships), and it'll work.


ElFenix's recomendations are sound. Since both drives are 7200rpm, go ahead and put the 15gb as Primary Master, and the CDRW as Primary Slave. Put the 30gb on as Secondary Master(There is no reason to set it to slave with no master.. shrug).

 

[ElFenix]

i have the feeling that burning is more reliable when the burner is on a separate channel than the hard drive the data is on. of course, my burning started way back when it took and hour and cds were $10, so old prejudices apply

 

[rahvin]

Myself I would put the two hard drives on the IDE0 chain and would put the CDRW on the IDE1 chain. IDE can communicate independently now, it was part of the UDMA spec. It won't slow you down hardly at all to have the two hard drives on the same chain (you will get minor slow down from using the same interupt). The CDRW does need it's own chain though, they work so much better when they aren't sharing any bandwidth or interupts with the device they are trying to spool data from.

The advantage of putting the hard drives together is that if down the road you want to add something like a zip drive you won't have it conflicting with a hard drive.

 

[brennan]

Although reading/writing from two devices on the same IDE controller is slower *in theory*, I personally don't know that you'll actually see any slowdown *in practice*; in ohter words, practically speaking, having your two hard drives on the primary controller will be basically as fast as having them on separate controllers. I've personally never had any qualms about putting two HDDs on the same cable and (therefore) the same channel. There may be a very small slowdown, but I doubt you'd even notice.

-brennan

 

[Ulysses]

I have to agree with Brennan_ on his point. I've tested, by backing up partitions, putting the HDD's on the same IDE channel and on separate channels - and found barely a second's difference in transfer times. I also saw a test that confirmed this recently in an intelligently written article on the web - but I'll be darned if I can find the article now.

On the other hand, when you are talking about using CD-R/W's it may be another story.

P.S.
The article I was looking for was right here at AnandTech:
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.html?i=1237

The article is worth reading. Not surprisingly, it says that there is currently little to be gained from using ATA/66 devices over ATA/33 devices, and it also makes little difference if you put non ATA/66 devices like CD-ROM's on the same channel as the ATA/66's.

If I read the article correctly, with current technology, if you are using two HDD's, it may be best to not worry about how your drives are arranged except to put the two HDD's on separate channels with the swap file on the HDD opposite the main HDD.

 

[Sukhoi]

Sorry if this has been mentioned before, but I haven't bothered to read every response since the thread is quite long.

If your CD-RW is not ATA33 compatible (a fair number of them aren't) you do not want it on the same IDE cable as a hard drive! IDE cables only operate as fast as the fastest device on them is. Thus if you have an ATA33 hard drive and a PIO 4 (I think that's the name of the slow 16 MB/sec drives) CD-RW on the same cable, everything will operate at PIO 4 speed. So, if your CD-RW is PIO 4, you either need to have both hard drives on the same IDE cable, or you need to buy a PCI IDE controller card, and then you can give each hard drive its own IDE cable, which will give you the best performance. I'd guess that 30 GB drive is ATA66 compatible, so it might be a decent inventment to spend the $40 to get a Promise ATA66 PCI controller card.

 

[Crypticburn]

Yeah, I have always had 2 HDs on the same cable too, some say you increase performance with them on seperate cables though. But, as stated, you're only as fast as your fastest drive on the cable, just keep that in consideration.

My old set up
Primary Master: 10gig WD caviar
Primary Slave: 27.3gig WD Expert
Secondary Master: CDrom
(SCSI: Yamaha CDR 6416)
but if your CDR isnt scsi
Secondary Slave: CDR

 

[rnmcd]

Ulysses- doesn't the anandtech article contradict what you discovered? Anandtech recommend the two hard drives on different IDE channels but you noticed very little difference with them on the same channel, right?


Sukhoi- how can I tell if my cd-rw is ATA33? I have a Plextor 8x4x32x that (according to the manual) can be enabled for DMA. I can't seem to find any info on whether it is PIO 4 either.


Crypticburn- may I ask why you recommended the CD-rw as Secondary Slave and the CD-rom as Secondary Master? I thought I've seen it the other way around.

I thank everyone very much,rnmcd
---------------


Components for the PC I am TRYING to build:

Antec 830sx case
Athlon 700mhz--(OEM)
Global Win FLK32 (heasink and fan)
ASUS K7V motherboard WITHOUT audio--(Retail)
128mb Mushkin w/Siemens Infineon PC133 ram
15gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for OS and software)--(Retail)
30gb Maxtor 7200rpm hard drive (for files)--(Retail)
Teac 1.44mb 3.5&quot; floppy drive--(OEM)
Plextor 8x4x32x CD-RW--(Retail)
Matrox Millenium G400 dual-head card 32mb--(Retail)
Creative Labs Soundblaster Live! MP3+--(Retail)
Altec Lansing ACS 45.2 speakers
Windows 98SE
Zoom 56k internal faxmodem(retail)

 

[Crypticburn]

That's how I set it up, I had a scsi, so I didnt have a problem. Although I dont really think it will matter if it's master or slave, you can make it master with the CDrom as the slave if you want, although I dont really think it will matter either way.. gl