Couple of quick new hardware questions

[Arsey]

I've got a spare PC with some identical componants to mine, and I want to add the hard drive and cd drive to my current PC. Both of these are the same as my current HDD and CD drive. Two questions:

1. If I want to delete everything on the new hard drive, should I format it on the BIOS screen or right click on the drive in "My Computer" and click format, or doesn't it matter? And should the pin configuration be set to slave on this? Will the drive be plug and play once a new partition is added?

2. Should the pin configuration be set to master on the main CD drive and Slave on the 2nd? There is also a CS option which I am unsure of what it is for, can somebody explain this?

Thanks

 

[Cutler]

1. Assuming that your hard drives are IDE drives, then set the jumper pins on your OS HDD to Master and your second HDD to Slave. Once the second hard drive is connected properly, the BIOS and Windows should recognise it. I don't think it much matters whether you format in BIOS or Windows - I would use Windows for the second hard drive. If these are SATA hard drives then they do not need jumper pins for Master or Slave.

2. Set one optical drive to Master and one to Slave or both to CS. CS means cable select and is a way of automatically selecting Master or Slave. (I think) it requires a special IDE cable to do this. Just use Master and Slave and you will be fine.

Your hard drives should be on one IDE channel and the optical drives on the other IDE channel. Although it is possible to have a hard drive and optical drive on the same IDE channel, it isn't recommended. Your Master drives should go on the end of the IDE cable and your Slave drives in the middle.

 

[Arsey]

Thanks a lot, they are IDE drives. That was a lot of help