Determining 'Master/Slave'

Question

I'm looking to purchase a DVD-RW for my I8200 to replace the CD-RW I currently have in the fixed bay.  I have learned that the 'master/slave/cable select' setting on the new drive is critical (as in this thread), but that information is not readily available.   How can I determine whether the drive I want to purchase is a 'master' or 'slave'?

GreyMack · Answer

I don't believe you'll have any problem with a notebook drive. The bare drive is unjumpered and the device is set inside the notebook connection. Slave to the primary system drive on the primary IDE channel, if I'm not mistaken. Optical drive assemblies for desktop use break these connections out, so they are user selectable.

GM

CDSoundzDJ · Answer

773andy,

Like GM stated I do not believe that you should have a problem in a laptop.

In the desktop world Master/Slave is simply a jumper setting on the drive itself and in some case can be left alone by using the cable select option.

In my Inspiron laptop it has two IDE cables and the hard drive is on the primary as master and the CD drive is the master on the secondary. The only problem you could run into is if you only have one IDE cable and you inadvertently set the CD drive as master as the PC would fail to boot from the hard drive.

Hope that helps.

Thomas

Storage, Drives & Media

Determining "Master/Slave"

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