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I'm working on a Dell E510 and added a second harddrive.

The first hd is SATA and the one I added as a slave is IDE.

It started up ok after installing second drive.

Since the \"slave\" drive was used I want to re-format it using \"Computer Mgt\".

The second drive is showing as \"E\" which is correct but it's \"Disk 0\". The OS harddrive is \"C\" showing as \"Disk 1\" and the CDROM is just showing CD-ROM 0.

Is it ok to have the hd with the operating sys as \"Disk 1\" instead of \"Disk 0\".

My question is semi answered because the computer started up ok.

http://screencast.com/t/ZDZmMjYwM

which mode on BIOS is native? set SATA to native and it should switch them around.


to fully answer your ? yes it is okay. Windows will know which drive is which. hence it would not have booted up windows at all if it didnt know already.

Thanks. Then here goes a re-format of \"E\" drive.

slave/master only applies to IDE.

Is it on the mobo side that you set Master and slave?

yeah IDE only has Master/Slave settings. and this is done on the drive itself, with a jumper

unless you use cable select then the ribbon selects the slave and master.

no not the ribbon, the IDE Controller does the selecting, based on the slowest drive on the channel

cable select doesn't work that way. Insurrectionist is right. Why do you think the connectors have different colours?

really? i really need to get my money back from Atlanta Technical School

AceCombat wrote:no not the ribbon, the IDE Controller does the selecting, based on the slowest drive on the channel

Nothing to do with the slowest drive. It's based on which part of the ribbon it's on. Normally the MASTER is the one connected closest to the MB.

Best is to manually set them to MASTER/SALVE.

CDN_Merlin wrote:

AceCombat wrote:no not the ribbon, the IDE Controller does the selecting, based on the slowest drive on the channel

Nothing to do with the slowest drive. It's based on which part of the ribbon it's on. Normally the MASTER is the one connected closest to the MB.

Best is to manually set them to MASTER/SALVE.

Jip that's how I have it as well that the plugs on the ribbon sets master / slave on cable select. The only logic I can find in the slowest drive statement is that the controller measures the time it takes the signal to reach the HDD and the one which that takes the longest (slowest response) is then set as slave which will be the plug that is on the end of the ribbon. But hell what do I know, this is just some random thumb-sucking

The mystery of cable select can be found HERE but with the advent of SATA there is no need for CS drives anymore or the special cable it takes to make them work.

If you are booting from your SATA, and you only have 1 IDE drive in, it will be Drive 0.

None of this master / slave / cable select conversation has anything to do with thewolfe's question. Which is more about what takes priority in mixed SATA/IDE-ATAPI systems (IDE came first, so IDE gets the higher priority). And as for his actual question of is it ok; yes its fine, you can boot from any fixed disk drive in a system regardless of its BIOS ID/priority. As a matter of fact I'm even booting from Disk 1 instead of Disk 0 with this OS install.

But he should be able to set the boot order for SATA or IDE in the bios.

Yeah you can set the boot order, but the drive IDs won't change.

Very good discussion you got going and a lot of good info.

Thanks.

Just swap the cables to the motherboard if you want your boot drive to be disk zero.