ide cables and master pin settings

I'm trying to get my new dvd burner to be the master drive. First: Can anybody tell me how to figure out which drive is master and which slave? In bios, it always jyst says a cd device boots up after c: . (I have cdrw and dvdrw). I can't tell if the 40pin ide cable's grey (middle) pin is the master or is the black (end) pin master? I thought it was the grey, so I set the dvrw jumper to master, plugged it into the grey pin (middle) of ide cable and started the computer. I think the cable is the 40(line/pin) type. I can't tell how to tell if it is regular or the 'y' shaped kind of cable.Either way I plug in, black or grey pins , the cdrw drive blinks first (by like a tenth of a second though), the cdrw jumper is on slave, the dvdrw on master. ((I also have an I think 80?pin? ide cable, it has a blue connector as well, I could try that one?)) But again which pin is which master/slave? And in computer properties it does'nt tell you which drive is the first boot?! Please help. URL

Here's a quick tutorial on IDE device configuration:

http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/misc.asp

good luck
Tom

Master drive or slave drive is up to your jumper setting. If your cdw's jumper is set to be master and no matter the 'Y' cable shows master your system will boot your cdw as the master drive. You need to check on the back of your drives to set the jumpers as the way you want. Normally, dvd is master and cdr is slave. Hope it helps.

GT