Are Ultra 133 IDE cables backward compatible with Ultra 33 and 66 controllers?

[tnitsuj]

I want to use ultra 66 Western Digital drives with some long Ultra 133 cables I have on an old Promise Ultra33 controller? Will that cause any problems?

 

[TheGreenGoblin]

There's really no such thing as a ultra133 cable . Ata 66/100/133 drives all use the same cable , so you shouldn't have any problems. If it's a dma 33 controller , you might have a pin on the the connector of the board where there's a blocked hole on your IDE cable , if that's the case , you'll have to use a regular IDE cable.

 

[Tom]

why do some cables have 80 wires then ?

 

[WackyDan]

Originally posted by: Dead Parrot Sketch
why do some cables have 80 wires then ?

80 wires but the same pin count and config. The extra wires are for shielding. Without them, you'd have data errors and/or slower data transfer rates.

 

[WackyDan]

80 wires but the same pin count and config. The extra wires are for shielding. Without them, you'd have data errors and/or slower data transfer rates.[/quote]

The older "slower" standards could get by only on 40 as there was less an issue pushing data at those slower speeds.

 

[Tom]

I guess "theGreenGoblin" is therefore not a good source for ide cable information ?
:frown:

 

[Geomagick]

green goblin is quite correct. The 80wire cable was introduced with ATA66 and the cable has stayed the same since.

80 wire cables work fine in ATA33 systems or even earlier IDE standards as long as the cable is able to attach to the controller/motherboard.

The problem quite correctly is the blanked pin. I forget which number it is. Simple way round this is to either get an old cable or cut the pin off.

 

[Tom]

oops, my mistake. I misread his post as refering to all ata cables being the same,

sorry, GreenGoblin ! 😱