Re: how to make hda become hdb?

[Pigeon <jah.pigeon@ukonline.co.uk>]

On Sat, Nov 30, 2002 at 06:28:49PM -0600, Shyamal Prasad wrote:
>     "Pigeon" == jah pigeon <Pigeon> writes:
> 
>     >> According to IDE specs, master is supposed to go on the end of
>     >> the cable.
> 
>     Pigeon> I think that for reasons of termination (such as it is for
>     Pigeon> IDE), if you only have one drive, it should go on the end
>     Pigeon> of the cable. If you have two, I don't think it matters
>     Pigeon> which is where, especially since the difference in status
>     Pigeon> implied by "master" and "slave" is an artefact of the
>     Pigeon> terminology with no counterpart in the functioning of the
>     Pigeon> interface. This is empirical, of course. But on a cable
>     Pigeon> with two drives, I've never found it to matter which goes
>     Pigeon> where.
> 
> Unless you set your drives to "cable select" and use an IDE cable that
> automatically chooses master and slave for you. Apparently these
> exist, though I've never used one (and would avoid it).
> 
> Cheers!
> Shyamal

Yeah, I too have heard of these and their reputation for being flaky,
though I don't know why this should be so.

I think the cables are visibly different, with missing connections, so
maybe it's something to do with floating pins on the HDD picking up
interference - best I can come up with.

Pigeon