WHAT ARE PRIMARY&2ndary MASTER/SLAVE???

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My problems are:---
(1)I'm having 2 HardDisks & 2 CDdrives in my system..
My HDD's RPM may not be same, i'm not very sure..But how
does it affect system boot time if RPM of both drives are
dissimilar?? Because if the RAMs doesn't match(in case u r
having 2 RAMs in the system), then the system will not
boot..Similarly if the HDdrives' RPM are not similar then
how will it affect the system--will it ever boot or boot
slow???
(2)Finally please tell me the correct rule to connect
2HDDs & 2CD drives with the IDE ports of the motherboard
in terms of primary & secondary master/slave ...I mean to
say how should one connect the 2 harddisks & 2 CD drives
with the IDE ports of motherboard in terms of primary &
secondary master/slave??? whether the HDDs should be
connected as primary master & 2ndary master or as primary
master & primary slave???
(3)Also please tell me win-XP works better on which--FAT32
or NTFS ???
Please help
Regards, Rahul..

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

>-----Original Message-----
>My problems are:---
>(1)I'm having 2 HardDisks & 2 CDdrives in my system..
>My HDD's RPM may not be same, i'm not very sure..But how
>does it affect system boot time if RPM of both drives
are
>dissimilar?? Because if the RAMs doesn't match(in case u
r
>having 2 RAMs in the system), then the system will not
>boot..Similarly if the HDdrives' RPM are not similar
then
>how will it affect the system--will it ever boot or boot
>slow???
>(2)Finally please tell me the correct rule to connect
>2HDDs & 2CD drives with the IDE ports of the motherboard
>in terms of primary & secondary master/slave ...I mean
to
>say how should one connect the 2 harddisks & 2 CD drives
>with the IDE ports of motherboard in terms of primary &
>secondary master/slave??? whether the HDDs should be
>connected as primary master & 2ndary master or as
primary
>master & primary slave???
>(3)Also please tell me win-XP works better on which--
FAT32
>or NTFS ???
>Please help
>Regards, Rahul..
>.
>1.Your first question is a really good one to which I do
not have a definitive answer. However, I did once have a
situation in which I had an Win XP installation on an
NTFS formatted 7200rpm drive and a Win Me installation on
a FAT32 formatted 5400rpm drive with a dual-booting
option. I never noticed any inordinate boot times with
XP in this case (an NTFS drive can see a FAT32 drive, but
not vice-versa and will load it at boot-up.)
2.The hardrives should be placed as the primary
master/slave and the optical drives should be placed as
the secondary master/slave. You really will have to
check the manufacturers websites for the specific jumper
settings. Some harddrives when set up this way will want
the master or slave jumper settings and some will want
the cable select setting. If set up with cable select,
the hard drive on the end of the cable will be the master
and the one in the middle will be the slave. Same with
the optical drives but each manufacturer is different for
each drive but never put a hard drive and an optical
drive on the same cable. Most modern hard drives have
either UDMA mode 4,5, and 6 capabilities while optical
drives have been stuck at UDMA mode 2 which is much
slower.
3.FAT32 is said to be somewhat faster with older
applications and some older applications will only run on
FAT32. However, NTFS is quite fast with newer
applications and older applications written for an NTFS
enviroment and is way more stable than FAT32. Given a
choice between the two I always choose NTFS.