Drive Installation Guidelines - HP xw4000 Service & Reference Manual

Ultra ATA Drive Guidelines and Features
Single-Drive Cable
Two-Drive Cable
On a two-drive cable, the Drive/Device 0 connector is always the farthest one from the system
board connector and the Drive/Device 1 connector is always the closest to the system board
connector.
Some cables may be labeled "Drive 0" instead of "Device 0" and "Drive 1" instead of "Device
1".

4.3 Drive Installation Guidelines

Most computer system boards have two ATA (IDE) controller channels with a dedicated
connector for each controller. One controller is designated as the primary and the other as the
secondary controller.
Each of the two controllers can have up to two devices attached to it. Each computer system may
therefore have a maximum of four ATA/ATAPI drives. All drives are connected to these
controllers using an industry-standard 80-conductor cable.
The industry standard 1.44 MB diskette drive has its own separate channel and is not included as
a part of the maximum four drives.
Any drive attached to a controller must have a drive designation. If only a single drive is
connected to a controller and its jumper is in the cable-select position, it is designated as the
Master Drive (Drive/Device 0) by its attachment to the Drive/Device 0 cable position. If two
cable-selected drives are connected to a single controller, one will be designated by its
attachment to the cable as the Master (Drive/Device 0) and the other as Slave (Drive/Device 1).
For optimal performance of a computer system, all drives need to be attached to the ATA
controllers in a specified sequence. This sequence is determined by the device class of the drives
and by specific attach sequence rules.
4–2
System
Board
Blue
Face
System
Board
Blue
Face
Device 0
(master)
Black
Face
Device 1 Device 0
(slave) (master)
Gray Black
Face Face
Service Reference Guide