i have 2 HDD; 1 CD-RW; 1 DVD ROM is it fine whichever IDE ports i use to connect the drives? i know the board has 2 IDE connector ports, IDE 1 and 2. and an IDE cable has two female ports. is it also fine whichever i use to connect the drives? i have 2 IDE cables they don't look the same but they fit the same. please help. thanks. I'm just asking for a lil help. Pls bear with me, maters.

you can do it either way BUT it is best to put your hard drives on IDE1 and your cd/rom on IDE2... Good Luck

You didn't post any hardware specifications. If your cables are different then you probably have one older style 40 wire/40 pin cable and one 80 wire/40 pin cable. Assuming your hardware is not ancient then the following info holds true. The old 40 wire cables are only good for 33MBPS. Modern hard drives run at 100MBPS. That means you should use the 80 wire cables for any IDE device that can run faster than 33MBPS. If you have a CD/DVD writer (burner) you should use an 80 wire cable on it also. The 80 wire cable can be identified by the blue connector for the motherboard end. The middle is grey and the the drive end is black. When jumpering a drive as Master you can connect the drive to either drive connector. If using cable select (CS) you need to connect a drive intended to be the Master on the end of the cable. As was stated above, use the primary IDE channel for the hard drive.

thanks folks. i think i have the 40 and 80 IDE cable. but, how would i know that i am running 33Mbps or 100Mbps drives? and if for example i remove one HDD. is it fine to use the middle IDE connector for the left HDD or should be the end of the IDE cable? thanks again. I'm just asking for a lil help. Pls bear with me, maters.

I explained the drive configuration in my first post. Reread it. If your drives are less than 5 years old then they are faster than 33MBPS.

primary master = HDD w/OS primary slave = DVD-ROM 2ndary master = CD-RW 2ndary slave = 2nd HDD Use master or slave jumper settings (not cable select) for all drives & use 80-wire cables for both channels. If it makes it easier for attaching the cables, make the 2nd HDD the master & CD-RW the slave on the 2ndary channel.