Hard drive cable question -

[Mike McCarty]

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
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