PCTech Forums

My HDD is on Primary Master and a CD Writer on Secondary Master. Recently I installed a DVD ROM Drive as Sec. Slave. This new drive was detected by BIOS and also XP installed it successfully, but thereafter my XP practically started getting hung almost 7 – 8 times in a day leaving me no option but to reset the PC every time.
Then I decided to put DVD ROM as Pri. Slave. Since then absolutely no problem.

Just wondering what could have gone wrong. Thanks.

I dont like putting any CD or DVD ROMS as Masters. I like them to be slaves. They work much better that way. I know this doesnt answer your question in a technical manner, but sometimes it defies logic. Just be happy you figured it out.

I always set the Writer as a master and set the roms as a slave. If adding another rom it would be set on primary as slave. Like PCguys said they just work better that way.
Just be lucky you don't have my situation.
I have a h.d.d as master on primary (of course) and set a writer as master on secondary. I can't set no other rom on either channel as slave. Just wont work, I've tried every combination known.

Well with todays new Architecture and faster and more uptodate MOBO's ,I don't think there is set configuration.
For instance on my new AMD Athlon64 MSI Neo Platinum MOBO,it would detect the DVD writer no prob...didn't matter where it was connected.
But it would not detect any other ROMS,e.g.: DVD-Rom or 52x CD-Rom.
No matter what combination I tried,keeping in mind the the HDD is IDE1-Primary.
Now I took a 52x CDRW and installed it as Slave on IDE1 and the DVD-RW
as Master on IDE2 and poof...no problem...


Cactus