I have a question.

I recently went to visit a pc repair shop.

I was there about a job but thats a different story.

I was told something about cables and drives.

I cant remember exactly.

but along these lines.

either an 80 pin cable on a 40 pin drive will kill the 40 pin drive or a 40
pin cable on an 80 pin drive will kill the 80 pin drive.

can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.

as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.

If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
cable.

"senn" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:42187ddb$(E-Mail Removed)...
> I have a question.
>
> I recently went to visit a pc repair shop.
>
> I was there about a job but thats a different story.
>
> I was told something about cables and drives.
>
> I cant remember exactly.
>
> but along these lines.
>
> either an 80 pin cable on a 40 pin drive will kill the 40 pin drive or a
40
> pin cable on an 80 pin drive will kill the 80 pin drive.
>
> can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
>
> as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
>
> If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
> cable.
>
Working on computers everyday, I have used both types of
cable on both types of HDD interchangeably many times,
and have never had any problem. AFAIK, the only reason
80-conductor cables are necessary is to take advantage of
the higher transfer speed possible with ATA100 and above.
The extra 40 conductors in an 80-conductor cable are
shields to prevent cross-talk between the data lines.

> > either an 80 pin cable on a 40 pin drive will kill the 40 pin drive or a
> 40
> > pin cable on an 80 pin drive will kill the 80 pin drive.
> >
> > can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
> >
> > as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
> >
> > If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
> > cable.
> >
> Working on computers everyday, I have used both types of
> cable on both types of HDD interchangeably many times,
> and have never had any problem. AFAIK, the only reason
> 80-conductor cables are necessary is to take advantage of
> the higher transfer speed possible with ATA100 and above.
> The extra 40 conductors in an 80-conductor cable are
> shields to prevent cross-talk between the data lines.
>
>

that's correct...
if you have an ATA100 or 133 drive...
it will not hurt it to use a 40wire cable...
it just won't operate at it's maximum speed

if you are not sure as to the capability of your HD...
you can always use an 80 wire cable...
it won't hurt anything

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 12:09:00 GMT, "senn" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>I have a question.
>
>I recently went to visit a pc repair shop.
>
>I was there about a job but thats a different story.
>
>I was told something about cables and drives.
>
>I cant remember exactly.
>
>but along these lines.
>
>either an 80 pin cable on a 40 pin drive will kill the 40 pin drive or a 40
>pin cable on an 80 pin drive will kill the 80 pin drive.
>
>can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
>
>as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
>
>If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
>cable.

One thing the 80 wires seem more fragile to me but maybe thats just
me. And I think I recall that cable select doesnt work with 40 wire
cables.

> >can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
> >
> >as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
> >
> >If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
> >cable.
>
> One thing the 80 wires seem more fragile to me but maybe thats just
> me. And I think I recall that cable select doesnt work with 40 wire
> cables.
>
>

I've never had a problem using cable select with the 40 wire cables...

but the 80-wire cables are definately more fragile...

under normal usage they are just fine...

but if one is an experimentor and always changes drives...
the 80 wire cables will break fairly often

On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 08:41:13 -0600, "philo" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>
>> >can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
>> >
>> >as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
>> >
>> >If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
>> >cable.
>>
>> One thing the 80 wires seem more fragile to me but maybe thats just
>> me. And I think I recall that cable select doesnt work with 40 wire
>> cables.
>>
>>
>
>I've never had a problem using cable select with the 40 wire cables...
>
>but the 80-wire cables are definately more fragile...
>
>under normal usage they are just fine...
>
>but if one is an experimentor and always changes drives...
>the 80 wire cables will break fairly often

No kidding.

See I took the websites at face value when they said that but Ive
never tried it myself.

Not that I care one way or the other . I never use 40 wire cable
nowadays anyway.

The only reason I would be concerned is if I ran across some guys PC
and he was still using 40 wire and I have a tendency to make
everything cable select cause I sometimes forget which I made master
and slave and its a real hassle if youve put the HDs back in the cage
and have to look at the jumpers so I naturall set them to CS . .

Or maybe all the 40 wires are now "special" nowadays. Not a topic hot
on my list to find out about.


Like here :
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html

Unfortunately, regular 40-conductor IDE/ATA cables don't support cable
select. (Why this came about I do not know, but I suspect that some
bean counter determined they could save five cents on each PC by doing
this.) So to use cable select you need a special cable, and these are
of course non-standard, making them a special purchase. Also, many
people don't understand cable select, nor do they realize it needs a
special cable. If you set both drives to "CS" and then use them on a
regular (non-cable-select) IDE cable, both drives will configure
themselves as "master", causing a configuration conflict.

"senn" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:42187ddb$(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have a question.
>
> I recently went to visit a pc repair shop.
>
> I was there about a job but thats a different story.
>
> I was told something about cables and drives.
>
> I cant remember exactly.
>
> but along these lines.
>
> either an 80 pin cable on a 40 pin drive will kill the 40 pin drive or a
> 40
> pin cable on an 80 pin drive will kill the 80 pin drive.
>
> can anyone clarify this as i had never heard it before.
>
> as I do pc support I wouldnt want to corrupt a drive by accident.
>
> If need be I would rather pay a few bucks to stock up on the 2 types of
> cable.
>
>

1/ All IDE (ATA) drives have a 40pin connector
2/ The cables for ATA66/100/133 speeds use 80 wires 40 of them being shields
to stop cross talk
3/ using either cable type on any ATA drive will not damage it but the
faster drives will slow down with the 40 wire cable.
4/ Some bios setups will tell you when a 40wire cable is being used on a
drive that requires an 80 wire cable, this will not stop the machine from
working.
5/ 80 pin SCA SCSI, 68 pin SCA SCSI use a "d" type connector which will not
fit an IDE drive.





--
Chris
Technical director CKCCOMPUSCRIPT
Apple Computers, Intel, Roland audio, ATI, Microsoft, Sun Solaris, Cisco and
Silicone Graphics.
Wholesale distributor and specialist audio visual computers and servers
FREE SUPPORT @,
http://www.ckccomp.plus.com/site/page.HTM
(E-Mail Removed)

> No kidding.
>
> See I took the websites at face value when they said that but Ive
> never tried it myself.
>
> Not that I care one way or the other . I never use 40 wire cable
> nowadays anyway.
>
> The only reason I would be concerned is if I ran across some guys PC
> and he was still using 40 wire and I have a tendency to make
> everything cable select cause I sometimes forget which I made master
> and slave and its a real hassle if youve put the HDs back in the cage
> and have to look at the jumpers so I naturall set them to CS . .
>
> Or maybe all the 40 wires are now "special" nowadays. Not a topic hot
> on my list to find out about.
>


possibly true...
i think that any 40wire cable i;ve used had been fairly new

I hope whoever told you that wasn't a tech lol

"Jamie" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:xr5Sd.5686$(E-Mail Removed)...
> I hope whoever told you that wasn't a tech lol

I'm more concerned that someone who actually thinks that they can be a tech
doesn't know this simple bit of information.