How can I tell if I have a cable select computer or cable?

[DJW]

How can I tell if I have a cable select computer or cable?
I have a Compaq Presario 5204. The paper manual says if you connect an
additional IDE (hard drives?) to set the jumpers to cable select.
If I understand cable select allows the derive at the end to be the
primary (master and the middle on the ribbon cable the slave. Western
Digital talks about cable select hook up as a cable with a black master
at the end of the cable plug and a mid way plug as being gray. Is that
an absolute specification followed by all cable makers. As far as I
know my computer has never had it's cable changed but both my IDE
connectors are black. And the cable at the end is marked drive 0 and
the middle one drive 1. The cable does have the red strip on the
farthest out wire out for determining the pin it should be connected to
so right to left is not reversed and pins are damaged due to the
missing middle pin?
WD also talks about either using the master and slave jumper or the
cable select jumpers on both drives but not both. Ifs that true for all
made drives? Does it matter that much if both configurations where used
at the same time? Or if either is used not much difference if any in
operation?
Also could a hard drive as in a number three be connected to the cable
middle or end that a CD-ROM is connected? Are second middle cabled
installed CD-ROM drives call master primary and slaves too?

 

[Arno Wagner]

How can I tell if I have a cable select computer or cable?

The computer cannto be either, the cable is allways cable-select.
The drives can be either cable select or jumperd, depending on
what the person installing them prefers.

I have a Compaq Presario 5204. The paper manual says if you connect an
additional IDE (hard drives?) to set the jumpers to cable select.

That is just so that people do not call support, since apparently
enough are stupid enough to jumper pit to master or both to slave.
With CS, taht si not possioble. On the other hand with CS you may
have to phYsicallys wap drives in order to get what you want.

If I understand cable select allows the derive at the end to be the
primary (master and the middle on the ribbon cable the slave. Western
Digital talks about cable select hook up as a cable with a black master
at the end of the cable plug and a mid way plug as being gray. Is that
an absolute specification followed by all cable makers.

The end and middle thing is is, the colors are not.

As far as I
know my computer has never had it's cable changed but both my IDE
connectors are black. And the cable at the end is marked drive 0 and
the middle one drive 1.

0->master 1->slave

The cable does have the red strip on the
farthest out wire out for determining the pin it should be connected to
so right to left is not reversed and pins are damaged due to the
missing middle pin?

That is tradition by now. The connector only go in one way, so it is
not needed.

WD also talks about either using the master and slave jumper or the
cable select jumpers on both drives but not both. Ifs that true for all
made drives? Does it matter that much if both configurations where used
at the same time? Or if either is used not much difference if any in
operation?

Again, if you CS one and jumper the other, many, many people will get
it wrong and produce support cost for the vendor. It is a good idea
to be consisten though. Personally I never use CS, since it is really
only the "idiotproof" option.

Also could a hard drive as in a number three be connected to the cable
middle or end that a CD-ROM is connected? Are second middle cabled
installed CD-ROM drives call master primary and slaves too?

Any IDE device is either master opr slave. CD-ROMs and DVD-drives too.
They also have a master/slave/CS jumper.

The significance of this master/slae thing is only during bootup:
the master gets assigned drive 0 and is responsible for sending a
reset to the slave. This is the reason why there are some non-working
combinations. AFAIK it is not a real issue anymore.

To sum up: Have one master per cable and it works. The master gets
the lower drive letter. Whether master/slave are selected by
jumper or CS does not matter that much. In fact the connectors
just sort-of have little jumpers hidden in them that take effect if
a drive is jumperd CS.

Arno

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

The computer cannto be either, the cable is allways cable-select.

Nonsense. 40 conductor cables usually are not Cable Select
with the exception of some used by the big computer makers.

The drives can be either cable select or jumperd, depending on
what the person installing them prefers.


That is just so that people do not call support, since apparently
enough are stupid enough to jumper pit to master or both to slave.
With CS, taht si not possioble. On the other hand with CS you may
have to phYsicallys wap drives in order to get what you want.

The end and middle thing is is, the colors are not.

Nope. There is no reason to expect that when the cable maker already
decided not to take notice of the ATA spec cable connector color re-
quirement that he won't skimp on the connectors too and just cut a wire.

0->master 1->slave


That is tradition by now. The connector only go in one way, so it is
not needed.


Again, if you CS one and jumper the other, many, many people will get
it wrong and produce support cost for the vendor. It is a good idea
to be consisten though.

Personally I never use CS, since it is really only the "idiotproof" option.

And you are an idiot.

Any IDE device is either master opr slave. CD-ROMs and DVD-drives too.
They also have a master/slave/CS jumper.

The significance of this master/slae thing is only during bootup:

the master gets assigned drive 0

Nonsense. Drive0 and Drive1 are the official names since ATA spec 2,
almost a decade ago.

and is responsible for sending a reset to the slave.

Wrong again.
Drive 0 waits for drive 1 to notify it that it completed it's selftest.

This is the reason why there are some non-working combinations.

AFAIK it is not a real issue anymore.

Then why have all drives still that jumper, babblebot moron.