asp.net dropdownlist s

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ASP.NET

I am going in circles here as to which is the way to work with a dropdownlist. What I have is a dropdownlist this is populated using a sqldatasource. This works fine. The ddl is outside of a tabcontainer that has many controls for the record that is selected from the ddl. The tabcontainer has inside (on each tabpanel) an updatepanel. The ddl is placed inside of its own update panel with several other controls. The objective is to select an item from the ddl and have the full record displayed in the appropriate controls in the tabcontainer. This is where I am spinning my wheels on this and ask for help on this. I am new at this (and not afraid to admit it - got to start sometime, right) so will need a clear explanation.
Thanks in advance.
John