Primary/Secondary & Master/Slave with SATA ??

strangersinspace

Distinguished
Aug 23, 2007
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Ok... this is probably an easy question to answer, but my searches aren't getting me anywhere. I am quite familiar with the PATA technologies regarding primary/secondary and master/slave configurations. But I'm upgrading my computer now and it has a SATA hard drive and I'm adding a second..... my question is... how can I tell which one is "primary" or "secondary" and also who is the "master" or "slave"? I can see the ports numbered 0 - 3 on the motherboard, but I'm not sure what that really means, if anything. I used to be able to figure this out easy in my old PC in the BIOS when I was using PATA..... I'm starting to wonder if SATA even uses the primary/secondary and master/slave configuration at all. I'll be thankful if someone can just give me the straight dope on this....

If it helps I'm running two SATA hard drives and an SATA DVD burner. I have 4 SATA ports on my motherboard running an Intel 925X chipset.

Thanks,
Brian
 

g-paw

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Jan 31, 2006
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There is no Master/Slave with SATA. Your SATA connectors should be labeled one through however many you have. Connect the drive with the OS on it to number 1. Start the computer and then once into Windows shut it off and connect the 2nd Drive to the connector labeled 2. If Windows doesn't boot, go into the BIOS and make sure the drive with the OS is first in the list of hdd and it's the boot driver.
 
Almost. The drives are numbered 0-3 rather than 1-4, but the BIOS default is most likely that the lowest numbered one is checked first for a boot drive; or it could be the lowest numbered one connected to a device of a selected type is checked first, i.e. optical drives may be checked ahead of hard drives if you've selected "CD-ROM" as the first boot device in the BIOS.