i call that a pretty fast reply anyway. so don't be hard on youself.
i have the HDD in the primary and the DVD drive in secondary.
and i have tried connecting to both parts in the cable, the middle and the end. although in the manual for the A8N-SLI it says to use the grey connector for primary HDD which was in the middle.
and the ribbons are keyed. they r missing one pin in the middle bottom so they can't go in the wrong way.