IDE Cables

[Roshan]

Hey guys I was wondering if IDE cables are specific to a certain drive. Can I put any IDE cable that actually fits, on a DVD, or can I put this same IDE cable on a Hard Drive. I am asking this because, I recently bought a Lite-On DVD 16X48X CD Rom Drive, and it didn't come with the IDE cables. However, my motherboard, which is a MSI KT333 Ultra2 came with some IDE Cables. One is for the Floppy and they gave two others. Apparently, one is supposed to be for the Hard Drive, and the other they did not say. So can I use this one on my DVD Drive.

 

[bozo1]

Well, the floppy cable is just that. It's not an IDE cable.

For your DVD drive, you can use one of the IDE cables that came with your motherboard.

There are two types of IDE cables - one for older drives, ATA33 and below, and those for ATA66/100/133 hard drives. Both have the same connectors but the ATA66/100/133 cables have 80 conductors instead of the 40 that the older cables use. You can use either for a ROM drive. For an ATA66/100/133 hard drive you should use the 80 conductor cable. (besides having 80 wires, you can usually identify them by one connector being blue and the other 2 being black or gray)

 

[Viper GTS]

IDE cables are a standard, they will work with any IDE device.

Your floppy cable, however, is not an IDE cable.

IDE cables are 40 pin, 40 conductor or 40 pin, 80 conductor.

In short, your motherboard cables will be fine.

Viper GTS

 

[microAmp]

Depending on your HDD, you'll more than likely want to use the 80 wire/40 pin connector for that. The 40 wire/40 pin connector for CD/DVD- ROM. You can also use the 80 wire one for the CD/DVD-Rom device but no performace difference.

The 40 wire/40 pin connector allows only up to 33 MB/s transfer while the 80/40 expands that up to 133 MB/s

 

[crazychicken]

what do you call a floppy cable? FDE? haha