>There are several drawbacks to using a separate IDE drive, especially on the same IDE channel. IDE isn't a terribly smart interface; the communications mode for a channel is determined by the -least- capable device on the channel. IOW, if you have a new UltraDMA33 drive and an old original IDE drive, everything will talk at the capability of the old IDE drive. If you're going to use a separate drive for a swap file and it isn't as capable as the main drive, put it on the secondary IDE channel.

Thanks for the insight, Ed. My swap drive happens to be on the secondary channel on one PC and the other is using SCSI anyway so, by chance, my setup is ok. I will keep your reply in mind for the future though - I wasn't aware of the comms mode determination. Do you know what happens with an IDE CDROM drive as second device on IDE channel?