Can I cut my IDE cable?

[SFang]

My hard drive IDE cable is too long, I am thinking about cutting out its secondary device part, will it creating any data loss for my hard drive?

Also, can someone tell me how to differentiate between ATA100 and ATA133 cables?

Thanks!

 

[cmdrdredd]

ATA/133 cables work with ATA/100 devices so there's no reason not to want ATA/133 cables. As for the cutting of the cable...it requires there to be 3 ports on the cable. 1 for mobo and 2 device ports.

 

[ElFenix]

cables don't require that there be 3 connectors but i don't reccommend cutting the cable... ata 133 cables are the same as ata 100 and ata 66 cabes. they're 80 wire 40 conductor cables.

 

[AmazonRasta]

If you don't get a definitive answer but you really want shorter IDE cables, you can, provided that you don't need the secondary connector, purchase cables that only have one device connector. It might be better to purchase new cables, since you'll most likely be doing it anyways once you find out that the the cable doesn't work after chopping the port off, and have some backup IDE cables incase anything in the future goes wrong. I don't know, personally, I like to keep a couple of known working IDE cables handy.

 

[SFang]

Thanks for the reply. The fact is I currently own about 10+ dual device ATA100 IDE cables, and I have an IT7 MB, which has 6 total IDE connectors to connect to my 5 hard drives. I want them to be on separate channels so to be fast. But the cables are all crowded even in the Antec 1080AMG case, that is reason I want to cut some to single device.

I guess I will first try on one cable, see if it works first. Well, I can't think of a reason why it shouldn't.

 

[Shelgeyr]

Simple answer: Yes.

However, you must cut the cable as close as possible to middle connector and then look at the cut wire with a magnifying glass (or something similar) to make sure none of the wires are shorted. I really reccemend that you forgo this adventure and purchase single ended cables. I had a cable cut in this mannor running in my system for about 2 months before I found a single device cable localy.

One more note: If you are using cable select, you must disable this and manually set your drive to master.

 

[SFang]

Yes, I use cable select on most of my hard drives. I guess I will just "forgo this adventure" like you said, since it seems not as easy as I thought. I am lucky to ask you guys before actually do the cutting. Thanks for the help, seems SVC has a lot of cables available...

 

[warrenpeace]

I have several of the rounded ata133 cables with the fancy shmancy braided jackets that I have cut down. Use a remarkably sharp exacto knife (brand new blade) and you should have no problems at all. I am currently using those cables on my RAID array drives, and it's performance is just fine.

 

[dmcowen674]

This is new to me, I've had cables too short but how is it too long? What does a cable too long do? Can't the excess be folded or tucked out of the way?

 

[EeyoreX]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
This is new to me, I've had cables too short but how is it too long? What does a cable too long do? Can't the excess be folded or tucked out of the way?

In my experience, cables that are too long combined with different/cramped case designs, different motherboard layouts, hard drive cage locations etc dont always make folding and tucking a viable alternative. Oh yeah, and cables that can not be easily folded and tucked reduce airflow and increase temps... I tried these methods until I finally bought short enough round cables that allowed me to organize my case cabling way better than trying to jimmy the IDE cable between the hard drive cage and the side of the case.

Though, I do remember a time when cables were too short... My how things have come full circle

\Dan

 

[PowerMacG5]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
cables don't require that there be 3 connectors but i don't reccommend cutting the cable... ata 133 cables are the same as ata 100 and ata 66 cabes. they're 80 wire 40 conductor cables.

Just out of curiosity, I thought it was 40 pin, 80 conductor? The older cables used to be 40 pin, 40 conductor, but the newer ATA standard requires 80 conductors for the 40 pins for a precaution, so that their would be negligible data loss, right?