which ide cable pin is primary?

3 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/which-ide-cable-pin-is-primary.21215/

Hello everybody,
Im using a 845 mobo, a cd RW and a HD.the priamary IDE is connected to HD and secondary IDE slot to CD RW.
Now the problem
the bios shows IDE primary master to HD and secondary IDE master to CD RW. when i connected the HD and CDRW to the optional middle pin in that flat ribbon type cable, the bios still shows both drives in master slots instead of showing them to secondary.
similarly the jumper of HD is set to SLAVE but bios shows Master.
Is this a problem.But drives works fine.
:?:

How to rectify this. what is the IDE cables master/slave pins, the end pins or the mid ones.
thanx for mere visit to this post.more thanks for replies .lot more
thanks for answers.

chk if the jumper on ur drives is set to cable select, usually indicated by "CS"...its not really a problem as long as ur drives work. besides, use the different IDE headers as long as u hv only two devices....

on the IDE cable, if u hv cable select enabled, the drive u connect with the top connector is configured as Master and the drive u connect on the lower connector is configured as Slave.....

See this pic ..
*www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/z_000524wires4080.jpg

If your cable looks like the upper cable ... then it doesnt matter what is master-slave setting is there on your drive. The drive at end (black connector) is master and drive at middle (grey connector) is the slave and the blue connector goes to the motherboard.

If your cable looks like the lower cable .. then the settings on the drive comes into picture.

Read more about it at PCGUIDE .. and do follow the links ..
It's very well explained.

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alibi