hey everyone. I'm not really a newbie, but this question sure makes me sound like one. I just haven't re-built my computer completely for a few months....

Well, how should i put my windows xp drive, my 2 other file storage drives, and my linux drive? oh and my 2 CD drives.
most importantly, where does the linux drive go? primary slave or secondary master?
I have IDE 1, 2, 3, and 4. I'm guessing they're primary, secondary and 2 extended.
Where do i put master disks again? in the middle of the cable or at the end? what about if there's only that one drive on the cable, do i put it at the end or what? :P
thanks guys.

Most motherboards these days would only support 4 (E)IDE devices I suspect. Primary master and slave, and secondary master and slave. Up to 2 devices per cable - 1 master, and/or 1 slave (not 2 of the same on a single cable).

With 2 CDs, you're talking *6* devices - you're on your own with that.

Put the XP disk as primary master (/dev/hda in Linux-speak), or else be prepared to play drive-map hoopla.
The rest can go anywhere.
If you explicitly jumper the devices, cable positioning is irrelevant.
If you use "cable select", master(s) go at the end of the cable. Cables can have only one device, but sounds unlikely in your case.

Thats what I thought (about 4 devices max) but maybe he has SATA?

or you could use one those pci cards with extra ide buses

The number of IDE controllers depends on the motherboard. For example my Soyo has 3 since it also has RAID. There identified as controllers 1-3 and since linux always starts at zero i.e. ide0-ide2.

Post the hardware specs. Are any of the drives SATA?

Are you reinstalling both OS's or do the drives have an existing load?

Regardless XP has to be Primary Master....Linux it doesn't matter. I have done a dual boot (I called it a cheap man's dual boot) by putting Windows on a Primary Master Hard drive and Linux as a Primary Slave. Worked fine, just had to adjust some BIOS settings and all was well.

In your case, you're gonna have to ditch some drives or buy some IDE adapter cards to handle all of those drives.

ergh.

well i have onboard, 4 IDE ports. so i'm guessing an extra onboard IDE controller. my mobo's GA-7NNXP. anyway i've put winblows in primary master, and i put my linux drive in primary slave. i put my CD drives as secondary master and slave, and the 2 storage HDDs in IDE 3.
Previously i put my CDs in IDE 3, but then they wouldn't boot bootable CDs. such as Knoppix, etc. we can't have that

anyway the reason i asked where to put the linux drive was that previously, i remember installing linux to one of the IDE 3/4 HDDs and it would have so many problems booting up. especially if that drive's a slave, i'm guessing.

anyway now that's all well and good, but there's been a new problem.

My computer freezes/hangs/locks up at times.
I haven't been using linux, it happens during windoze usage. That hasn't happened for a long time now....
It's the kind of freeze that doesn't start with response time increasing. Everything would be fine and fast, the cursor's following my mouse quickly, then SNAP, suddenly the cursor wouldn't move anymore.
I don't know what's wrong, i tried memtest, no errors. i tried using win's scandisk to do a thorough scan (overnight, i didn't see the results).
My PSU's a CoolerMaster 400w, and my processor is Athlon XP 3000+. the mainboard temperature stays at around 30, the processor temperature at around 60 (celcius).
The default BIOS setting for "CPU temperature warning" was 80 celcius though.

If anybody knows what might be the cause that'd be incrediblously appreciated. thanks!

This m/b is amazing. Most mobos won't even accept additional IDE controller due limited resources. This one has:
4x HDD @GigaRaid
2x HDD @SATA Raid
2x HDD @IDE 1
2x ATAPI @IDE 2
I think one should read manual for this m/b before attaching devices to avoid hardware conflicts.

oh right, by the way. It's all working fine in windows now, but Linux doesn't seem to recognize the 2 harddisks connected through the extra IDE controllers. has anybody overcome this problem? cause i can't optimally use linux without access to those 2 drives.
does anybody else have this mobo? because aside from that, i htink one of the 2 LAN controllers are messed as well.
any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!