Computer Hope

Hardware => Hardware => Topic started by: banjo67xxx on February 22, 2014, 09:01:50 AM

Title: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: banjo67xxx on February 22, 2014, 09:01:50 AM: Hi,

Was just moving some IDE cables around, and I forgot to note which end was which, I thought they would be labelled, like they are in some other systems I've worked on.

Here's a picture of the cable
(http://www.banjo.me.uk/20140222_154437.jpg)

Would I be right in thinking that the connections are as follows:
1) mobo
2) slave
3) master
Is this correct?

What is the recommended way to identify the connections?

TIA
Title: Re: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: patio on February 22, 2014, 09:50:07 AM: MBoard=================================Master=====Slave.
Title: Re: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: banjo67xxx on February 22, 2014, 10:46:59 AM: Cool - thanks

So on my picture that's
1) mobo
2) master
3) slave

Worked perfectly :-)
Title: Re: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: Salmon Trout on February 22, 2014, 10:59:50 AM: That is a really old 40-wire cable, you can clearly see the year 2004 printed on it near the motherboard. The modern 80-wire cables which are used with modern hard drives UDMA 3 and above, have coloured connectors. The blue connector attaches to the motherboard, black to the master, grey to the slave.
Title: Re: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: Salmon Trout on February 22, 2014, 01:23:59 PM: Quote from: Salmon Trout on February 22, 2014, 10:59:50 AM
The modern 80-wire cables which are used with modern hard drives UDMA 3 and above

Advised for UDMA 3 and 4, mandatory for UDMA 5 and above. A modern BIOS will detect a 40 wire cable, and 1. show a message 2. reduce the UDMA mode to a suitable lower level.
Title: Re: HELP! Forgot to note which end was which on IDE cable???
Post by: banjo67xxx on February 24, 2014, 05:04:55 AM: Quote from: Salmon Trout on February 22, 2014, 10:59:50 AM
That is a really old 40-wire cable, you can clearly see the year 2004 printed on it near the motherboard. The modern 80-wire cables which are used with modern hard drives UDMA 3 and above, have coloured connectors. The blue connector attaches to the motherboard, black to the master, grey to the slave.

Yes, it was obviously a newer replacement cable, being made 2-7 years after the server (first shipped Dec 97, last order Feb 02, EOSL May 02). I don't think I'll be needing 80-wires as the server only uses UDMA-100/ATA-4 and is limited to LBA28 addressing.

I've had to buy specific models of disks, as some of the newer drives dont like running in LBA28 mode (Sun only supported 4.3GB 9GB and 20GB disks). The only 160GB drives that I've found to work are Segate ST3160021A and Western Digital WD1600BB (although obviously I only see the first 137GB due to the LBA28 limitation).