Re: Help installing Fedora

From: P.T. Breuer (ptb_at_oboe.it.uc3m.es)
Date: 01/13/04 

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 17:10:25 GMT

Richard Steven Hack <richardhack@prontomail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 14:40:18 GMT, ptb@oboe.it.uc3m.es (P.T. Breuer)
> wrote:

> > Nobody
> >shows any documentation saying you can or can't, except me, who points
> >to two documents, one of which (kernel doc) says that a cdrom should be
> >always slave to an ide in order to be safe

> Slave to a hard drive, yes, but to another optical?

I already pointed once to the paragraph in my (first? second?) post
which stated what I was saying. The gist of the claim was that cdroms
don't (or didn't) come with electronics to be master to a "full" ide
device. Choose your value of "full" appropriately.

> >, and another of which (atapi
> >howto) says that if alone on a bus a cdrom must be jumpered as master.

> And none of your docs explain why.

I know why in that case. The kernel ide or cdrom driver code (I forget
which) never used to even look for a slave if a master was not present.

> I just read a PC Guide article that says while it is correct to jumper
> a CDROM alone on a bus as master, some CDROMS will work as solo slaves
> and others won't.

> The PC Guide site has a lot of stuff on master-slave and IDE/ATAPI
> configuration issues, but there isn't a lot relative to how
> CDRW/CDRs/DVDs necesssarily need to relate to each other. It's mostly
> about keeping hard drives master and opticals slaves, which is fairly

A hard drive is a "full" ide device by most peoples yardstick.

> obvious, although there are a variety of considerations there, too.

> >Nobody tells me what their idea of working is, such as being able to
> >run both at the same time without dropouts at their specified rate,

> Well, if you're copying CDs to CDRW, obviously that would be an issue
> - if in fact it became an issue. If it doesn't, then it's not a
> problem. One fellow I just quoted in an update to my previous post
> says he's been doing this since his old 233MHz no-burnproof setup with
> no problems. So is it a problem? Not for him, apparently. Maybe it
> used to be a problem, maybe it's a problem with some makes and models
> depending on the drive electronics, maybe there's no hard and fast
> rule or even a statistical norm if nobody's establishing the stats.

> >My mind is perfectly open!

> Empty is not the same as open - although it can be if it's the "right"
> kind of empty...:-)

My mind is empty of prejudices.

> >(and it is documented as such in the atapi howto) that cdroms come from
> >the factory jumpered as slaves.

> Which is reasonable as before CDs became common, it was expected that
> you had one hard drive, and if you had a second, it should be on the
> secondary IDE channel as master for performance reasons, which leaves
> only a slave position for an optical drive. Since most opticals end
> up as slaves, the factories jumper them that way. What is surprising
> about that?

The surprising thing is that they didn't come jumpered as master, so
you could pop them straight on to the empty second ide bus.

> Now when you have four devices, things get complicated. The
> recommendations are to put the hard drives on one IDE channel - since
> apparently, nowadays the hardware can handle speed differences between
> devices better than it used to - and the opticals on the secondary IDE
> channel. Problem is, no one seems to be specific about which optical
> should go where. The only thing people seem to agree on is that as
> long as you're not experiencing problems or doing a lot of CD to CDRW
> copies such that you get problems, then it's not important.

> >I don't know. I suggest somebody who is interested LOOK IT UP.

> Not THAT is a good idea. And I tried, but I can't find anything
> fairly quickly other than the PC Guide site which does cover a lot of
> this but still doesn't seem to answer this specific question.

> I assume there is more technical data somewhere that I could find if I
> were to search for ATAPI specs specifically, but it's 4:45 AM and I'm
> going to bed. Have a nice night, Peter!

G'night and sl'p tight.

Peter

Relevant Pages

  • Re: WHAT ARE PRIMARY&2ndary MASTER/SLAVE???
    ... Your Motherboard has two ide cable connectors. ... To connect CDROMS and Hard Drives. ... Ide Connector one is Primary Master and Slave. ... Do not mix CDROM and Hard Drives. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: SYSTEM RUNNING SLOW !
    ... Put your 2 hard drives on the Primary IDE ... You want your main hard drive with the OS to be the Master ... The RPM should matter at ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Drive order
    ... IDE 1 Master - OS Hard Drive ... IDE 1 Slave - WD Hard Drive ... it would still be advisable to put the Hard Drives on ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: Drive order
    ... IDE 1 Slave - DVD ... IDE 2 Master - DVDRW ... Having the hard drives on seperate ide's can help in file copying. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • SATA drive quesion
    ... Can I also run ide hard drives at the ... same time (as slaves) as well with ide cd-rom drive? ... up as normal one master on slave on the chain? ...
    (alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus)