can see slave drive data in master drive but cant use as master?

Question

I have a master drive tried to hook up. . I tried using it as a master at one point but windows would not load properly.
I decided to use as a slave drive and now you can see data on master drive(other drive). Question: Why can you see data on master drive now when windows would not load properly when I had set drive to master?

Answer 1

any drive can be set to slave or to master. You cannot have two masters or two slaves on the same IDE channel.
The drive where the OS is, is usually the master drive but I don't think it is necessary.
What is necessary is that there is a master and a slave for each IDE channel, so the controller inside the master drive takes over the slave..
In any case it makes sense to have the OS on the C drive with the C drive set as MASTER. Then on the same cable off the same IDE you might have a Slave drive.
Or you might have another Master but then you need to hook it to the other IDE channel.
Hope it helped you as I didn't really understand what your prob was. I mean who cares about the data, format the lot and install a new OS on it.

Answer 2

Perhaps the windows is corrupted on it so it can recognize the data on it, but might not be able to read the windows installation properly. You can always try system restore with it.