How to place IDE harddrives

[Michel Carleer]

Did not want to add to this thread, but Grigory is telling some strange things: DMA between memory and controller and then DMA between controller and HD. How can you have Direct Memory Access between a HD and a controller?
Sorry, but when the sytem works in DMA mode, it means that the data from/to a peripheral (and not only HDs) is transferred directly to/form memory, without going through any controller or the CPU.
Michka

[Hal]

I have a question along the same line, but I'll end up with 5 items. I currently have following:

IDE1 Master: HD, partitioned: OS 2GB, empty 8GB
IDE1 Slave: ZIP
IDE2 Master: CD-ROM
IDE2 Slave: CDR

I expect to end up with 5 items, OS HD, AVI HD, ZIP, CD-ROM, and CDR. Based on the replies herein, it sounds like to keep it simple and inexpensive I should configure as follows (I don't want to go SCSI HD unless absolutely necessary; already going to spend $$ on more memory and AVI HD.):

IDE1 Master: OS HD
IDE1 Slave: Zip
IDE2 Master: AVI HD
IDE2 Slave: empty

PCI controller: CD-ROM and CDR.

Questions:
1. I assume a PCI controller is not the same thing as going SCSI, true?
2. Dr. Morbid said make both CDR and CD-ROM masters. I assume then, that on a controller card there is no need to make one a slave, true?
3. Can I just add another AVI HD in the empty IDE2 slave position later on?
4. What's the impact on IRQ's? (an area I really don't understand. Will the computer take care of that for me when I reconfigure?)
5. I was told that I could just delete my CD-ROM and use my CDR for same functions, but when I tried playing music and data disks in my CDR as a CD-ROM machine crashed, data (kid's Toy Story game) played poorly, sound getting ahead of loading of video, and then crashed as well, so I assume I need to keep both. Is this a function of my CDR just being a couple years old?
6. Is there any impact caused by my partition in the OS HD?

I am learning a TON in these posts. Thanks to all of you.

Hal