It doesn't matter whether it's Master or Slave, and it doesn't
matter which IDE channel it's on - ch. 0 or ch. 1. What matters
is whether the hard drive is at the head of the HD boot order
in the BIOS. *That* HD's MBR will get control. The MBR will
then pass control to the Boot Sector of the partition marked
"active". That partition is expected to have the boot loader
(ntldr), the boot menu (boot.ini), and the environment detection
routine (ntdetect.com). Then, according to the default set in
boot.ini (or the keyboard input in selection of which OS to boot),
the OS will be loaded from which ever parition is designated.

To repeat: Look at the HD boot order in the BIOS. The HD that
you want to get control must be at the head of that list. If it's at
the head of that list, it doesn't matter whether it's Master or Slave,
on channel 0 or channel 1.

*TimDaniels*


"Dmitry Kopnichev" wrote:
> Thanks Richard.
> My disk has only one partition. Is it the "primary" partition.
> Have I to set the HDD as first master on the Promise Ultra100 TX2",
> or I can leave it as second master?
>
> "Richard Urban" wrote:
>> It depends upon what type of partition is on the drive. If it is a
>> "primary" partition, you have to set that partition as "active".
>> There can be only one active partition at a time and this is the
>> partition the computer boots from.