LinuxQuestions.org - Do 2 harddrives have to be Master/Slave?

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Do 2 harddrives have to be Master/Slave?

I am about to install a Maxtor hard drive. I've read at one site that
Maxtor drives do not like to share with other hard drives on the same cable. Can I put the new drive as secondary master and still dual boot?

oh yeah that'll be ok, i've never had probelms with maxtor drives complaining, just make sure you set the jumpers correctly.

Do you mean it is OK to do Master/Slave or that it is OK to put new drive on secondary Master.
Randy

It should work either way.

well both, you should have no reason to have any trouble... put it on secondary slave if you want, should still boot fine.

Can put on hd and a cd on one and the other hd on the other

You can do almost anything u like regarding Master/Slave settings for Hard Disks.

However, from my experience it is highly UNrecommended that you set a Hard Disk to be a slave to a CD/DVD-ROM/R/RW.

The performance of the disk will be somewhat under par.

I always do things this way:

hda - primary master hard drive
hdb - primary slave hard drive (if a second hd is there)
hdc - cd/dvdrom
hdd - cd burner (would be hdc if no cd/dvd rom is present)

yes, it can be done other ways, but I have found this way best. I always use that configuration when building computers or upgrading my own and it works flawlessly.

I ended up with Linux=PrimaryMaster, CD Rom=Primary Slave,
Windows=Secondary Master. However Linux isn't finding Windows as yet. I can't put my hard drives close enough to connect them together as Master/Slave. Linux is working fine however. I'm going exploring in the forums now.
Thank You

Windows should be on /dev/hdc1 then.

You will have to re-install grub and put the stanza for windows in your /boot/grub/grub.conf file.

Installing a bootloader
Multiboot with GRUB Mini-HOWTO

Woudn't putting the two hard drives on Primary slow things down a bit?

Widows is on hdc1
I tried something that I read in the forums.
Installed Widows on primary hard drive then moved it to secondary master. Then put new hard drive as primary master and installed linux. Did I mess up there?

You haven't messed up. Just install grubon the MBR of hda then change grub.conf to use hdc1 to chainload boot windows.

Quote:

Originally posted by yowwww
I always do things this way:

hda - primary master hard drive
hdb - primary slave hard drive (if a second hd is there)
hdc - cd/dvdrom
hdd - cd burner (would be hdc if no cd/dvd rom is present)

yes, it can be done other ways, but I have found this way best. I always use that configuration when building computers or upgrading my own and it works flawlessly.

This is ok but if you put your cdrw and cdrom on different cables then you will get a fater throughput when copying CDs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't throwing a CDrom/DVD/burner on the same cable as a hard drive cause the whole cable to run at DMA33 instead of 66/100/133 ? For that reason alone I keep my cd drives on the secondary chain.

Thank You
acid_kewpie,
fancypiper,
Treat84,
Azmeen,
yowwww,
and
david_ross
you have all been a help.
However, david_ross, I can't figure out how to get to into grub.conf.
And, fancypiper, I don't have any idea on how to reinstall grub.
The CDs did everything pretty much automatically.They came with a LINUX for DUMMIES book and is referred to as a publishers edition.Also the boot floppy made during installation is no good,
I've tried using a command line applet in Linux but nothing happens.
I appreciate your help and patience.
RAL

grub.conf is just a text file. Just open it in a text editor:
vi /boot/grub/grub.conf

Then change the valuse you need so that the windows system is referenced properly.

Best to make a backup copy first ;):
cp /boot/grub/grub.conf /boot/grub/grub.conf.bak

The text editors are both denying me access to grub.conf.

To change to the root account, open an x terminal and use these commands from your user account. Note the change in the prompt.

Code:

[fancy@tinwhistle fancy]$ su -

Password: 

[root@tinwhistle root]#

Now you will have permission.

Thanks, between fancypiper and david_ross I finally got in there.
BUT I must have entered something wrong.
Here is what I have.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.18-14)
root (hd0,0)
Kernal /vmlinuz-2.4.18-14 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd /initrd-2.4.18-14.img
title Windows98
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
map (hd1))hd0)
map (hd0)(hd1)
makeactive
chainloader+1
------------------------------------------------
originally after the Linux part there was a Dos loader which I removed.
Linux is on hda, Windows is on hdc
Am I almost there?

That looks like your /boot/grub/grub.conf file. Use the code tags (button labled #) to post commands, config files, etc.

Installing a bootloader
Multiboot with GRUB Mini-HOWTO

For your reference, here is my partitioning:

Code:

[fancy@tinwhistle fancy]$ su -

Password: 

[root@tinwhistle root]# fdisk -l



Disk /dev/hdc: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4867 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes



  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hdc1  *        1      4867  39094146  83  Linux



Disk /dev/hda: 255 heads, 63 sectors, 4865 cylinders

Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 bytes



  Device Boot    Start      End    Blocks  Id  System

/dev/hda1  *        1      1217  9772056    c  Win95 FAT32 (LBA)

/dev/hda2  *      1217      1229    99855  83  Linux

/dev/hda3          1230      1656  3429877+  83  Linux

/dev/hda4          1657      4865  25776292+  5  Extended

/dev/hda5          1657      1719    506016  82  Linux swap

/dev/hda6          1720      2146  3429846  83  Linux

/dev/hda7          2147      2573  3429846  83  Linux

/dev/hda8          2574      3719  9205213+  83  Linux

/dev/hda9          3720      4865  9205213+  83  Linux

[root@tinwhistle root]#

And here is my /etc/fstab file:

Code:

# Celeron 850 tinwhistle /etc/fstab/file

/dev/hda6        /                        ext3                defaults        1 1

/dev/hda2        /boot                        ext3                defaults        1 2

none            /dev/pts                devpts                gid=5,mode=620  0 0

/dev/hda8        /home                        reiserfs        defaults        1 2

#/dev/hda3        /mnt/gentoo                reiserfs        defaults        1 2

#/dev/hda7        /mnt/mandrake                ext3                defaults        1 2

/dev/hda1        /mnt/winc                vfat                defaults        0 0

none            /proc                        proc                defaults        0 0

none            /dev/shm                tmpfs                defaults        0 0

/dev/hdc1        /pub                        ext3                defaults        1 2

/dev/hda9        /snd                        reiserfs        defaults        1 2

/dev/hda5        swap                        swap                defaults        0 0

/dev/cdrom        /mnt/cdrom                iso9660                noauto,owner,ro 0 0

/dev/fd0        /mnt/floppy                auto                noauto,owner    0 0

And here is my /boot/grub/grub.conf file:

Code:

# Celeron Coppermine 850 tinwhistle box /boot/grub/grub.conf file

default=0

timeout=10

splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title Red Hat Linux 7.3

        root (hd0,1)

        kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/hda6

        initrd /initrd-2.4.18-3.img

title Mandrake 9.0

        kernel (hd0,6)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda7 quiet devfs=mount vga=788

        initrd (hd0,6)/boot/initrd.img

title Gentoo

        root (hd0,1)

        kernel (hd0,1)/boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda3

title Windows 98 Sucky Edition

        rootnoverify (hd0,0)

        chainloader +1

HTH

Your map command has "))" and it should have ")("

Thanks again, especially to fancypiper and david_ross.
I finally got through to Win98.
I was leaving out spaces
(hd1) (here) (hd0)
(hd0) (here) (hd1)
chainloader (and here) +1
Thanks again
RAL :D

Quote:

Originally posted by Saraev
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't throwing a CDrom/DVD/burner on the same cable as a hard drive cause the whole cable to run at DMA33 instead of 66/100/133 ? For that reason alone I keep my cd drives on the secondary chain.

nope. but it can definately slow a hard drive down.
if you have a hard drive on the same cable as a cdrom
drive, and put a cdrom in the drive that the drive can't
read, your system will slow to a crawl, because the
cdrom will keep getting that bus locked to try to read
things it can't and will hang up everything. whatever is
sharing a cable, cannot both be transferring data on the
cable at the same time. they take turns.
the master should be at the end of the cable, with the
slave in the middle, but it will usually work both ways
with the old style 40 pin cable.
lots of drives will not work well together at top speed.
i've often had to slow down a drive a dma mode or 2
when it has another drive on the cable with it, to get it
to work right. luckily with most drives it makes little
difference between the top 2 speeds the drive will run
at. some basically run the same speed at udma 66 or
100.
it's also possible to run both drives in cable select mode.
it's called cable select, because the cable is what
decides which drive is the master or slave. you can
buy or alter your own cable for this purpose. in this
situation both drives are set to cable select, and the
special cable with one of the wires to the master cut,
and, the drives get set master or slave by where they
are on the cable. this can be handy for moving drives
around without having to change jumpers. i can't
remember which pin to cut though, but i'm sure you
could find it on the web.

also, lots of cdrom drives will mess each other up
being on the cable with each other. i'll sometimes
go thru a stack of different brands and speeds of
cdrom drives and burners trying to find 2 that will
work together perfectly on a machine, with both in
dma mode. hopefully the new serial drives will
get rid of this madness. ( while probably introducing
a new madness of their own).

i just found some newer information on CS, that
corrects a few errors on my part. it's good info.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html