IDE cable

[mrman]

Hello.

Is there a difference between installing a device on the end connector vs. the center connector of an IDE cable?

IOW, If I have a HDD and a CD-Rom on the same IDE cable/channel, does it matter which connector is connected to each device as long as the master/slave jumpers are correct?


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ATHLON 750, GA-71XE, 256 SDRAM, 20 GB 7200 Maxtor, 32 MB G400, 52X Creative, 16X VeloCD, SB Live, win98se, Centurytel DSL

[Sarrkazztic]

I dont think it matters as long as you have your jumpers set but I still always put the master on the end and the slave in the middle

[mrman]

What about one end vs another end?

In order to slave my CD-Rom to my HDD, I had to reverse the cable and put the HDD on the center connector and the CD-Rom on the connection that was in the Mobo.

I have a 250 ZIP slaved to a CD-RW on the other IDE channel since I got my burner. Now it takes 30 seconds for my bios to detect the drives which used to be instantaneous. I'm trying to rule out the cable configuration as the cause.

They need to make them longer!

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ATHLON 750, GA-71XE, 256 SDRAM, 20 GB 7200 Maxtor, 32 MB G400, 52X Creative, 16X VeloCD, SB Live, win98se, Centurytel DSL

[bistro]

Not a good idea to totally reverse the cable. Check around the net or you friendly local computer shop for a longer IDE cable. They make them in all sizes--some with longer lengths between the end and middle connector. www.directron.com www.plycon.com www.caseetc.com

[mrman]

Ok. If I pull an IDE cable out of the bag, how do I know which end goes into the Mobo and vice versa:? I don't see any markings to indicate which end goes to which connection.

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ATHLON 750, GA-71XE, 256 SDRAM, 20 GB 7200 Maxtor, 32 MB G400, 52X Creative, 16X VeloCD, SB Live, win98se, Centurytel DSL

[bistro]

Longer end goes onto the mobo.

(mobo)|-------------(slave)|-----(master)

[mrman]

Present configuration....

Primary:

(mobo)|-----(HDD mst)|-------------(CD-Rom slv)

Secondary:

(mobo)|-------------(ZIP slv)|-----(CD-RW Mst)

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ATHLON 750, GA-71XE, 256 SDRAM, 20 GB 7200 Maxtor, 32 MB G400, 52X Creative, 16X VeloCD, SB Live, win98se, Centurytel DSL

[Artanis]

Many recent made cables have colored connectors on then. Soyo has orange on one end (that goes into the motherboard), some others have blue/gray/black (motherboard/slave/Master). Most important is where that red stripe goes.

If you have all black connectors you have to go by length
x..........x....x = (MB/Slave/Master)

Seeing that the end connectors are the same, I can't see how it makes a difference either as to which end you put in the Motherboard. As long as the red stripe is right.

Here's a link on installing IDE devices. Ribbon cable starts half way down the page....

freepctech.com

I am sure there are more of these links, that was the first decent one off google.


[This message has been edited by Artanis (edited 10-06-2001).]

[DrMDJ]

As long as this is a 40-pin/40-wire (non ATA 66/100) cable, a master/slave (not CS) setup is used, there are no blocked pins on the connectors, and proper Pin 1 orientation (red stripe on wire) is maintained at all connections then it doesn't matter how the cable is oriented really. If any of these conditions don't hold then it will matter.

Maybe try temporarily disconnected the zip and cdrw individually to see which is causing the prolonged detection delay.


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[mrman]

Thanks DrMDJ. I broke out the TDK installation video, and it also said it didn't matter which way you connect it as long as the 1 pin it in the right place and the jumpers are correct.

Any idea on something in the bios to change? I don't want to lose any of my devices over the delay.

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ATHLON 750, GA-71XE, 256 SDRAM, 20 GB 7200 Maxtor, 32 MB G400, 52X Creative, 16X VeloCD, SB Live, win98se, Centurytel DSL

[DrMDJ]

You might simply try setting the definitions for the CDRW (and Cdrom and Zip) to None. In reality the detection done by the bios routines for those type of drives is pretty primitive. Basically it just is looking to see if they are there. It's not like disk drives where it has to know size, cyl,head/trk info, etc. And as I said, you can try disconnecting the zip the the cdrw one at a time to see maybe which is causing the delay. 30 seconds does seem very long.

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