Got a curious problem. I was going to create a slipstream CD for a Windows XP install with SP3 and my PC wouldn't read the XP install CD (or even boot from it). I also tried with my original install CD and that wouldn't work either which was surprising as I originally installed from that CD using the same CD drive. The only thing I could think of was that at some point I had added a Hard Disk which was sharing the IDE cable, when I installed the HDD I set is at the master and the CD as the slave (I must have read somewhere that performance is better if the HDDs is set as the master drive). To fix this problem I disconnected the HDD and switched the CD to the master and suddenly it reads and boots from the CD. Anyone know why this should happen? Also is there any real problem having the CD as master and the HDD as slave? Thanks Nick
You shouldn't really be running an optical drive off of the same IDE cable as you hard drive. It will work, but having them both there will slow the hdd down iir. If you're running a single hard drive and single CD drive on the same cable (rather than multiple hard drives,) then use another IDE cable and you motherboard has a secondary IDE socket, use the hdd on one cable and the CD on the other. On individual cables, both devices must be set to master. Otherwise either set their jumpers to master and slave respectively (on the same cable), or use cable select on both of them. Using CSL, the drive on the far end of the cable will be master and the one in the middle, slave.
Yup, I see what you mean but I'm greedy and have 3 HDDs in this PC. The CD and HD will just have to live together on IDE2, hopefully my new rig will be ready soon so this will be less of an issue for me.
If you're upgrading it's worth going all SATA (hdd and optical,) as it neatly side steps these kind of issues. Having said that, my little brother used to run a similar configuration to your current one. It worked, but wasn't without its problems.
Yup, the new rig will have SATA HDDs, though I will fit my trusty Philips DVD Writer but that will be the only IDE device there should be no problems!
