You can install the hard drive and a cd/cvd disc drive on the same IDE channel,
just set jumpers to HDD=Master & optical drive to slave.or if your system supports cable select, set both jumpers to this setting.This solution is usefull if one of your IDE channels has "blown"
It would be best to configure the CD drive as the Master and have the hard drive set to slave. This configuration normally allows the CD drive to function when hard drive is not bootable on a single channel IDE.
IDE supports two drives per interface.
If you only have one drive, it should be configured as "master" (and ideally should go at the far end of the cable if the cable has connectors for two drives).
If you have two, one of them has to be configured as master, the other one as slave (sometimes you can get away with setting them both to "cable select", though personally I've seen this NOT work at least as often as I've seen it work as intended; the cable has to be set up for it, and not all older ones were).
It doesn't really matter which is which. Newer documentation refers to them as "device 0" and "device 1" instead, which is arguably better terminology, since "master/slave" implies that one of the drives controls the other, which is not actually the case.
Typically this is done with jumper pins.
Each IDE connector on the board supports two channels per. (Two drives) The combination of drives can vary. For instance, hard drive-cdrom, hard drive-hard drive, cdrom-cdrom, ect....ect.
Hard drive as master and DVD writer as slave.
Configure the hard drive as the master and the CD-ROM as the slave.
The Harddrive needs to be set as "master" and the CD ROM as Slave.
For performance reasons, a Hard Drive and CD-ROM drive should be on separate IDE channels. This is because both drives on one channel will share bandwidth, making them run at only half the speed if both drives are active at once (i.e. installing a program from CD-ROM). Both drives should be configured as "Master" drives (according to the jumper cables), since they will both be the master for their respective channel.
No it does not. As long as the motherboard has the proper connectors for the hard drive you are installing, IDE or SATA, you will not have to replace it. If the connectors are different, then return the hard drive and get one with the proper connection type.
operating system
the hard drive should be set to master...
I would suggest installing windows on one hard drive, then installing ubuntu on the same hard drive. Use the other hard drive for the backups (partition it).
Installing the program to your hard drive
CD-Rw
yes all hard drives must be reformatted before installing an operating system.