Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2006-02-23 at 11:12 +1100, Wolfgang Gill wrote:
Nope it doesn't matter. Drive selects are done with jumpers on the drive. All IDE 40/80 pin cables are straight through, so the drive itself govens whether it's master or slave. When I only have one drive, I use the middle connector, and hide the other one out of the way, to give me better casing air flow.
That is just so much misleading, not to mention outright wrong, information. Kindly stop leading people down the garden path.
On 40-wire cables, all pins will not be wired through if it's a cable-select cable. On one plug a pin will be disconnected, on another
I've never seen a 40 pin CS cable.
plug a pin will be disconnected from the cable and grounded. These need to be connected properly if using cable-select, but can be used any way around if you're manually jumpering drives.
This is true in theory, and in my experience in practice, and superior IMO to using CS.
On 80-wire cables, the same applies (as above) for cable-select features, AND there's 40 other wires between the data lines that are only grounded at the motherboard end. These NEED to have the motherboard plug plugged into the motherboard, or you're risking a lot of data corruption or interface problems, but the master and slave connectors only need to be used as labelled if you're using the drives in cable-select mode.
If one is hiding parts of cables out of the way, one should be careful how it's done. Kinking or mangling cables can produce problems. If you're *never* going to use the extra length, I'd suggest just cutting it off.
Umm, won't work if using CS, because the middle connector is the "slave". But I sure wouldn't leave a bunch of cable dangling after a connector.
Mike