Windows would mess up big time with the HDD on slave. I can only guess why anyone would do this except they thought it didn't matter, wanted to debate it or just goofed.
You can find OLD advice about slaving the CD and how in days of old it could slow the HDD. It was true.
-> You can configure as you wish. Try it and learn why we did such long ago.
Bob
Once again I am asking questions about the refurbishing of my old Dimension 5150 desktop.
It has an ide dvd drive preinstalled. I wish to connect an older HD of 10GB in line with the DVD. The DVD, being the first in line, would be the master; the hd would be the slave.
This seemed like a relatively simple procedure until I read this on one website:
"DO NOT put a CD Drive on the same channel as your hard drive! Most modern CD drives are ATA33 while the modern hard drives are ATA133. A drive can only transfer as fast as the slowest device on the channel."
I have searched CNET and not found a reference to this problem. Since this is an add-on drive, speed is of little consequence to me; not much I can do with 10GB anyway.
Neither of these components are "modern". Should I change the IDE cable to place the HD as master, with the appropriate jumper config, and the dvd drive as the slave?
This hd is so old, I think it was running Win 95; Win XP may be unable to access it. But I have to try.
I hate to discard old stuff, as I am 62 and retired. Perhaps I should retire my old computer components.
Anyway, I continue to lear more about computer hardware by dealng with problems such as this.
Chowhound
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GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic