Do Dell's have proprietary IDE cable sizes?

[Red]

A friend got a DVD burner for his 4000 series Dell Dimension. He tried to put it in last night with a new standard size IDE cable. His primary IDE cable (the one connected to the original hard drive and optical drive) was standard sized, but the seconary IDE port was shorter and the standard ribbon did not fit it. Is this a proprietary size for the secondary port or what? It's sitting right next to the standard size IDE port.

 

[Fraggable]

It sounds like he's trying to plug it into his floppy drive's IDE port on the motherboard, which is smaller than a regular IDE port. There should be at least 2 normal IDE connections on the motherboard and they're normally right next to each other.

If he has enough hard drives and optical drives he may have to make the DVD burner a slave on a cable that has something else attached to it.

 

[Malak]

Dell does have proprietary hardware like mobos, I wouldn't be surprised if they only had 1 IDE port. Fraggable is right though, there are usually 3, and the smaller is for the almost extinct floppy. I think I'd rather just do without that port.

 

[WobbleWobble]

Try checking out some Dell docs

They don't use proprietary IDE cables and last time I worked in my GF's 4600, it had 2 IDE slots.

 

[InlineFive]

Newer Dell computer usually only have one IDE port on the motherboard. But otherwise the spec is the same.

Keep in mind that you may need a power splitter because their PSUs have few plugs.

 

[cubby1223]

Originally posted by: Fraggable
It sounds like he's trying to plug it into his floppy drive's IDE port on the motherboard

We know what you're saying, though floppys do not use ide ports, they're just called floppy ports.