H/D Setup

[Geordie32]

Hello.

I'm new to this board, but have always heard that people are VERY helpful & you always get good advice - well I suppose this is my chance to fined out.

I have a couple of q's for all you clued up people out there:

Q1. I have a P.C running win 98 1st ed. with 2 H/D (both 20gb/ata100)also an ide cdr/w & dvd rom drive.

Currently, I have both h/d on the same ide (1) chnl & both cd drives on the 2nd.

I was told that it would be better to put 1 h/d on one (as master) & the other one on the second chnl - i.e:

ide 1 h/d (primary), dvd slave.
ide 2 h/d (primary), cdr/w slave.

The reason I was given was something to do with accessing 2 h/d on the same ide chnl possible causing a bottleneck when transferring files between the 2 & trying to write from the dvd to the cdr/w cause some mischeif when writing "on the fly".

Is this true?

Secondly, I want to format the master h/d & put on win98 se (maybe xp later - better the devil you know, etc).

I also, (after reading posts here) want to partition my primary h/d into 3 partions c: (about 5-10-gb - for o.s/s), d: (1gb - for swapfile) and e: (whatever is left) for applications/games, then use my second hard disk for storage only (mp3,s movies, etc).

The questionis : Is this feasible, or can anyone give me any better ideas & If I back files up to my second hard drive (presently d, will I be able to access & restore this info once the other drive letters are assigned?

Anyones expertise will be greatly appreciated on this matter.

Regards,

Geordie32

 

[unoc]

On each IDE channel you can only read or write and you cannot read and write simultaneously.
This is the reason why CD-Rom and CD burner are suggested to be connected in two different IDE channel. If you want to make a copy "on-the-fly" you need to read from the CD-Rom and simultaneously write on the CD-burner. Someone uses to make CD copy by using "image-file" on the hard disk when the CD-Rom and the CD-burner are on the same channel. This allows you to let the hard disk to work at its highest rate because it is possible that a slow CD-rom/burner (working at DMA 3÷4 or PIO mode) may slow down the hard disk (but this should be verified by using a simple benchmark utility before and after connecting the CD-ROM). If nothing changes, it is better to link on the same channel one HDD and a CD-Rom device.
Second question.
If you put the hdd on a different channel, it is reasonable that you install the OS on a partition on the disk 0 and the Swap file and/or the application on an other partition on the hdd 1.

the last is in the past