Hi I have 2 HDD, and 2 CD-Roms and im wondering how I should have them set up on the IDE channels? Right now i have it set like this = Primary IDE Master = 120GB 7200RPM 8MB. Primary IDE Slave = 80GB 5200RPM(I think) 8MB SECONDARY IDE Master = 16x/48x DVD-Rom SECONDARY IDE Slave = 48x16x48x CD-RW (Soon to be a 52x24x52x CD-RW) Any Help or ideas would be appreciated.

Always heard that it's bad to have a CD-ROM on the same channel of a hard drive. Dont know how true this is, but never had any performance problems keeping HDs and CD-ROMS on different channels. You may hear something different from someone else though.

? i dont have a cdrom and hdd on the same channel.

Your setup is good. See the post just after this one for more info. Once I set up a CDROM with my Master HD on the same IDE channel. Couldn't figure out why my system slowed down radically until someone on this forum corrected me. Put HDs and CRDROMs each on their own channel and my system was back to normal again.

Vash, I know you dont have any CD-ROMs and HDs on the same channel, but if you were to change your current configuration, you would obviously be putting a HD on the same channel as a CD-ROM. In other words, i'm saying: leave everything as-is. One thing to remember is that each of the IDE controllers are only as fast as the slowest device on it. Meaning that if you have a ATA-133 HD and an ATA-100 drive on the primary IDE controller, the controller will only be ATA-100 and you wont get the best performance out of the ATA-133 drive. Likewise: If you put an ATA-1xx drive on the same controller as say a ATA-33 CD-ROM, then BOTH devices will operate at only ATA-33. If one of your HDs is ATA-100, and the other ATA-133, take the drive that doesnt contain the OS, purchase a Promise PCI Fastrack controller that corresponds with the speed of the drive, and connect that drive to it. This will give you optimal performance in this scenario.

I more ment should i put the 52x24x52 CD-RW as the secondary Master or slave? to the 16/48 DVD-ROM

It shouldn't matter. It won't change the speed of the channel, so you won't see any performance difference. If everything's working now, leave it as is.