Making round IDE cables

[kmike75]

I read an artical about how to make a flat ide cable into a round one. It said you can carefully cut with a razor blade between every 5th pin and tear the flat cable from one connector to another, then stack the slices of cable and plastic tie them into a bundle. I'm told that as long as you don't cut through the cables that you will not have data read problems. Has anyone tried this before?

 

[gdawson6]

Ive did it to a floppy cable and an ATA33 cable, and it worked fine. I didnt have the guts to do it with the ATA100 cables though, they are a lot smaller and i knew i would cut something if i tried.

 

[Dan]

I routinely do it with the systems I build. I use the method you describe for ATA/33 and floppy cables. For ATA/100 cables I simply fold them in a "w" shape and hold the folds together with zip ties. Along with zip ties I've tried wrapping the entire cable in colored electrical tape and spot wrapping it with electrical tape. The former looks nice if you do it carefully but the end result is a very stiff cable. You achieve the best "finished" look by spot wrapping tape and then covering the cable with split loom.