I just changed my dead msi p6n to a gigabyte ga p35ds3r mb; my
drives are 1 500 gig seagate sata 2, 1 ide wdc 160 gig using an ide-sata
converter, 1 sata dvd burner, 1 ide dvd burner.

The p6n ami bios has the drive config of both the harddrives as sata
as well as the sata dvd burner; the ide burner remains as ide.
e.g. sata --- seagate 500 gig as main drive
sata ---- wdc 160 gig (with ide to sata converter, jumpered as master)
sata ---- dvd lightscribe burner
ide ----- dvd burner
Very staight forward.

On the gigabyte award bios sees everything as ide, which is ok, BUT
the bios also see the drivers as master & slaves!
ide 0 master ---- sata dvd lightscribe burner
slave ---- sata 500 gig seagate ("drive C")
ide 1 master ---- empty
slave ----- wdc 160 gig (with ide to sata converter
jumpered as master)
ide 3 master --- empty
slave ---- empty
ide 4 master ------ ide dvd burner (jumpered as master)

The connections to the mb is the "same" for both boards,
i.e. sata 0 (1) --- 500 gig seagate
sata 1 (2) --- dvd lightscribe burner
sata 2 (3) ---- 160 gig wdc

ide ----------- ide dvd burner

If the above is understandable, why is there a difference between the
bios drive configs? AND most importaantly, how or is it possible to
reset the award bios to look somewhat like the ami which is more
logical?

The main problem is I'm dual booting with winxp on the 500 gig &
linux on the 160 dig setup as the secondary drive (as seen from winxp
& linux) such that linux (suse 10.3) cannot find its partitons. Will
probably have to reinstall linux but this "master slave" stuff in the
bios makes things VERY confusing........

Any clarifications with bios settings of why the award bios is doing
things that appear to be haphazard to me?????