IDE cable questions

[SnowPeak]

Hi all,

I am confused about the IDE cables and you guys are my best source for more information:

1. Is there a difference between Ultra ATA 100 and just ATA 100 cable? I need to buy one cable for my IBM Deskstar 60GXP 40 GB HDD.

2. How can I distinguish between an ATA 33/66/100 cables? They do not have anything written on them.

Thanks a lot.

Abi 😀

 

[Jex]

ATA or Ultra ATA = same thing. You should know if you're buying a 100 or 66 (prolly have a hard time finding just 33 cables anymore). If you don't the 66s look like the old style ide cables. The 100's have more, finer wires (80 I think). You can definately tell them apart.

 

[4824guy]

The ata66 and ata100 IDE cables will have 80 conductors, while the standard ata33 cables only have 40 conductors.

 

[Boobers]

ATA66 and ATA100, same cable. It is still a 40 pin connector (exactly the same as the "old" IDE cable), but they are color coded: black, blue and gray.It also has a 80 conductor cable (to reduce cross-talk). If you really can't tell the difference, simply count the number of conductors in the cable, itself. It should look like a SCSI cable (if you know what that looks like. 🙂 )

 

[Caiwyn]

Boobers is correct. The ATA66 and ATA100 cables are the same. And there's no difference between ATA100 and Ultra ATA100, or Ultra DMA 100, or whatever else you might hear.

The easiest way to tell the old ATA33 cables apart from the newer ATA66/100 cables is to look at the connectors. The old ATA33 cables almost always have only black connectors. The newer cables have one black, one grey, and one blue connector.

 

[bacillus]

<< The newer cables have one black, one grey, and one blue connector >>


ensure that you insert the blue conector into the m/board or controller card!

 

[4824guy]

<< ensure that you insert the blue conector into the m/board or controller card! >>


and that the last connector goes to the master device, and middle connector for the slave.