A quick guide in installing those ATA hard drives, and those SATA hard drives...

if ur deciding to run one IDE hard drive set the jumper to MASTER!!!
plug it into the end of the IDE cable that is the opposite of the connect thats by it self. Preferably i wouldnt plug anything else into this ribbion cable even if u have 2 cd/dvd rom/burner drives ur going to install

On the motherboard
Plug the connecter from the ide cable into the IDE-1 slot plug ur IDE HARD drive set as Master into the end connecter of that cable.

Plug ur 2nd IDE Cable into the IDE-2 on the motherboard Make one of the 2 cd/dvd roms devices a MASTER and plug that into the end of the cable. Make the 2nd Device a SLAVE and plug that into the middle connecter of the cable.......

Make sur eeverything is turned correctly and pushed in firmly but not excessively..

Having 2 Hard drives non-raid set up..

Like above, make 2nd hard drive SLAVE and put it in the middle connecter of the IDE-1 CABLE that has your hard drive set to MASTER there...

having a 2 hard drive RAID set up on IDE

Plug connector that is furtherst away from the other 2 connecters into IDE-1 on the motherboard, Plug in a FORMATTED hard drive that is SET to MASTER to the end connector of the IDE-1 CABLE.

Plug one cd/dvd rom device that is set to SLAVE into the middle connector of ide-1 cable.

Grab another IDE CABLe,, plugging the connector furthest away from the other 2 into IDE-2 connector on the motherboard. Plug the 2nd FORMATTED hard drive set as MASTER as well into the end connector of that cable IDE-2.

Plug in ur 2nd cd/dvd rom device set as SLAVE into the middle connector... u do not need a 2nd cd/dvd rom if u do not want it..

Start the computer, and check bios for all connectivity and detections. Have ur raid disk set up and ready provided by the motherboard company. On windows XP, u will be prompt to press a key to load drivers for the raid. follow the steps....

On SATA drives

Each drive gets its on port, and every device is techinically a MASTER device, there are no jumpers to be set... SATA makes it much easier for cabling, and setting up raids...

hope this helps! anyone having confusion about where to plug in their hard drives and what jumper to set.

Start ur computer

Quick query:

What is the Cable Select (CS) setting on the hard disk?

Here's what Wikipedia have to say regarding cable select, it's about half way down the page...

Thanks for that (which I didn't know) it means that all kit will work with all drives on CS assumming the 80 wire cable.

Which all of mine are and when working on other people's kit also works.

Am I missing something ?................

Just Make sure you have a Cable that actually works with Cable select, but basically it was a technology attempt to eliminate having to choose jumpers... but to me it kinda defeats the purpose considering you , usualy have to put the jumper in Cable Select mode anyhow, so why not set it up the correct way the first time

well kind of off topic but,
once I somehow put the molex into an optical drive backwards. I did not look at what I was doing, but it fit. And when I went to power up smoke came out.
I killed the drive, and it was a good one(NEC 3550A).
So watch out how you plug in the power.

BTW I got a second and it still works.

I have only one IDE conn. on mobo and have end of ribbon on cd drive (slave) and middle of ribbon on HD (master). Is that alright ?