I will assume that your computer has TWO ports on the mobo for IDE devices. They probably are labeled IDE0 and IDE1, or maybe Primary IDE and Secondary IDE. It should not matter what device you connect where on modern machines, but on very old machines you are better to use the #0 or Primary IDE port for the boot device.
As you know, you need to set jumpers on each device for Master or Slave. But be sure to use the diagram on each device for its setting - there is no universal system. So do NOT set a jumper on one device according to the diagram on another.
Check your data cables - the wide ribbons. They should each be 80 wires wide (not 40). As a quick check, start counting across a ribbon. If you get to 20 wires and you're only ¼ of the way across, you're good. Now, look at one cable. It has three connectors on it. The BLUE one on one end goes to the mobo port connector. The BLACK one on the other end goes to whichever device you have set as Master (via jumper). The GREY one in the middle goes to the Slave device (if there is one).
The Master and Slave designation is applied to each port separately. Each IDE port MUST have a Master device to be used, and it MAY also have a Slave device. You can connect both HDD and optical drives to an IDE port, but SOME old optical drives had difficulty acting in the Master role when sharing with a HDD on the same port. So, as a precaution when sharing a port that way, make the HDD the Master device and the optical unit the Slave.
With the equipment you have, I would be inclined to connect the two HDD units to DIFFERENT IDE ports since they are both fast - that way they won't be completing for time on one shared port. That means make each of them a Master of its port, and then connect an optical drive as the Slave on that port.
So, set each HDD's jumper to Master (or, Master with Slave Present, if that is a choice). Set each optical unit to Slave. Connect one HDD to the BLACK end connector of the IDE0 port's ribbon cable, and one optical unit to that cable's GREY middle connector. Now do the same on the cable from the IDE1 port.
When you start up, go immediately into BIOS Setup and check that all four devices are being detected properly and the ports are Enabled. Now go to where you set the Boot Priority Sequence. I usually set mine so the first boot device tried is an optical drive, and the second is the HDD I will regularly boot from. In most cases I will boot up with that optical drive empty and, after a quick check of that unit, the BIOS will jump on to the next choice, the HDD, and boot from there. But on rare occasions where I'm doing something special, I can place a bootable DVD or CD in the optical drive and it will boot from that, not the HDD.
So, I suggest you set the optical unit in the Primary Slave position as your first boot device, and then the HDD in the Primary Master position as your second choice. SAVE and EXIT to save those settings. I presume your machine will NOT boot successfully because you have not yet installed an OS on that Primary Master HDD.
Now you are ready to Install the OS. Place the Install CD in the main optical drive and boot to that disk to start.
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