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3 drives on one IDE cable?

Z

Zenbeatnik

Member
I'd like to know if I can do this:

DVDROM======DVDROM======DVD/R/RW============Primary IDE Connector

ASUS P5AD2-E MOBO

The cable I have only allows for two drives. Can I add another connector to the cable to achieve the above configuration?

Also (if the above is possible) can I use an Ultra DMA 100/66 signal cable instead of the 40-pin IDE cable?

I'm using a SATA Raptor so it's on it's own cable.


Thanks!
 
To the best of my knowledge, such a thing ought to be impossible(according to the spec) and almost certainly is. You could certainly crimp another connector onto the cable; but I'd be shocked if it would work. In any case, though, using the 80 conductor cable is always ok. The extra wires are just grounds for signal purity, and the connectors are mechanically and electrically identical to the 40 conductor variety. Not always necessary; but, so far as I've heard, never a bad idea.
 
IDE ports and cables are limited to 2 ea (Master and Slave)...if you want to add a third then hook it up to the other 2ndary port which will allow 2 more.
 
Thanks phisrow and LED for your replies. I'm guessing I need another solution perhaps a controller card? I'm a bit of a building noob; this is only my second computer since building one six years ago. The previous rig I built had the extra IDE connector on the board (ABIT BH6) so no problem. The reason for the second DVDROM is for zone 2 dvd's (I'm presently living in Japan).

Can you recommend a controller card?

 
Not possible. IDE, being a reincarnation of the traditional ISA AT hard disk controllers (*), has one controller per cable (in the Master drive) and a maximum of two drives on that controller. There are no provisions for a 3rd drive, neither in hardware signalling nor in register set and drivers.

(*) Yes really. IDE just integrated the controller board onto the drive, eliminating the drive connection cables. Instead, the ISA bus was stretched onto the IDE drive. Even today's UDMA100 cable is essentially the remnants of what once was just an appendix off the ISA bus.
 
Zenbeatnik...another solution is to purchase an external USB/Firewire Case and put the optical drive in it...Being from Japan I know thet use a 100V's overthere but many US electronics work on it or you may have to go to Akihabara 😉

Also there are some Opitcal SATA drives now available...
 
Personally, I'd check the model of your DVD drive, then google for region free firmware. You shouldn't have to buy a second drive to play media from different regions, but maybe that's just me.
 
Thanks for all your advice so far. For me I thinking the best solution is picking up a controller card. I did some checking and the Promise Ultra133 TX2 2-channel Ultra ATA/133 Controller seems to be what I'm looking for.

Cheers
 
You can hook up three drives to the cable, the only catch is it will not work unless you have the power off of one of the three drives which you can use a simple switch to do. This does work,m I did it with my modded xbox and used it on an old computer of mine.
 
Originally posted by: beatle
Personally, I'd check the model of your DVD drive, then google for region free firmware. You shouldn't have to buy a second drive to play media from different regions, but maybe that's just me.
Click to expand...

I totally agree!
Try looking on
this site for a region free firmware for one of your DVD drives.
 
Originally posted by: PumpActionWalrus
You can hook up three drives to the cable, the only catch is it will not work unless you have the power off of one of the three drives which you can use a simple switch to do. This does work,m I did it with my modded xbox and used it on an old computer of mine.
Click to expand...

You cannot do this with ata66 or up. you cannot do this if the drives are not in cable select. do not do this.
 
Thanks again for all the advice. I ended up adding the Promise Ultra133 TX2 controller card and now all three optical drives have their own IDE connector. Beatle and bacillus thanks for the heads up on the region free firmware; unfortunately I couldn't find a firmware update for this drive...no worries tho since I'm basically covered by LtnRPC to disable the region counter if and when I need to at some later time.

Cheers
 
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