Hi In HDD naming convention a=primary master b=primary slave c=secondary master d=secondary slave. So it's directly mapped from IDE interface. Where as floppy drives can not share same bay or controller. So they are refered as numbers. <disclaimer> My opinions. Don't take them for granted. </disclaimer> Bye Shridhar Nitin Kumar Gupta wrote: > > why are numbers used for floppies and alphabets for hds.