Y-IDE cables?

Here's a lil background which I always add to my problems/question to get a better, more direct answer. I've used up all my IDE cables that my computer comes with (2 for the HD, and 1 for the CD-RW drive), or at least the ones that fit in those slots. But now, I'm gonna buy a DVD-R but I want to leave my CD-RW connected but I'm missing an IDE cable. So I ask my brother if he knows anything that is basically an IDE extension. He says Y-IDE cables..so far I've had no luck finding them, all I see is normal IDE cables..any comments/suggestions/links?

I suppose that this 'extension' is suppose to connect to one of the current IDE cables, and have two more coming out of it, and the part that connects to the IDE cable has pins on it.

Hi Raion

Your standard PC will support 4 IDE addresses as it comes out of the box.

You usually have two cables (flat ribbon type) with two connections on each.

Connect the two HDDs to one cable and the DVD and CD to the other (watch that you remember to set the master/slave relationship to what you want ;) )

All you need is a standard cable with two connections such as I imagine you are using for your HDDs already.

:)

I have moved this to "Hardware"

Just for the record if you arer planning on doing any kind of disc to disc stuff with the optical drives it would be better to have them on seperate cables. At least thats what i was allways taught. so it would be :


Pimary master HDD1
Primary slave DVD-R

Secondary master HDD-2
Secondary slave CD-RW

That is supposed to make disc to disc operations such as direct copying much more reliable

Sounds like the cable you have only has two connectors (one at each end)
and therefore only supports one drive, so you need a cable that supports two drives.
Now, if you already have two drives on that cable, and want to add another,
you gotta unplug one, because the channel only supports two devices.
:cool:

I'm bumping this thread because the date for me buying the new drive is getting near and I need some info. My computer came with only 3 IDE cables (the ones that actually fit on the HD, i forgot how many pins but my educated guess would be 64 idk), and 2 floppy ones. Probably because it only has 1 bay for the HD, two for floppies and 2 for CD drives and they figured it wouldn't be necessary. Any opinions?

Ok, new question:

I opened up my case, and one of the IDE cables only has one connector, which is why I am lacking IDE cables. I was wondering, If I change that cable and put one with 3 connectors will it still consider that harddrive as master or do I have to go in and set the pins (i never set the pins lol)

Most computers made in the last few years have a system
called Cable Select. The drive at the end of the cable will
automatically be master, and the one in the middle will
be slave.

This only works if the whole system is compliant with
the standard. The BIOS has to be capable(probably is).
The cables have twice as many wires (though the connectors
are still the same). The connectors are color coded grey, black and
blue. Blue to motherboard, black to master, grey to slave.

The jumpers on the drives need to be set for CS, cable select.
Some drives didn't used to ship set to cs. You might want to check.
Most recent hardware will be set correctly. Just plug it in.
:cool:

The BIOS has nothing to do with cable-select.. Twice as many wires? Sounds like a UDMA66/100/133 cable as opposed to a 'regular' UDMA33 cable.. This in and of itself doesn't say anything about cable-select. I have several 80 wire IDE cables that are NOT cable-select. I also have several 40 wire IDE cables that ARE cable-select.

It has to do with the wiring of pin 28. If pin 28 is grounded it's master, if it isn't grounded it's slave. Cable-select cables work in every system. Only the drives themselves need to have a CS setting.

Yeah, maybe the BIOS doesn't matter. I've seen conflicting info
on the net. The main thing is that, in fairly recent computers,
it should work without problems. I bought a new 250 gig
drive recently, and it came configured to CS.

People have complained in the past that drives weren't set
to CS from the factory, and therefore you had to reset them,
which seemed to defeat the purpose of CS, which was
intended to make drives less complicated to set up.

And BTW, I also discovered that there was a Y
shaped cable on the market at one time, but not
popular any more.
:cool:

I'm still confused lol here's what I understand so far:

If I connect a IDE cable to the motherboard that has 2 connectors (not including the one that goes on the mobo) in the place of the IDE cable with only 1 connector and connect the opposite end (the one not connected to the mobo) to a hard drive for example, that one would act as master, and if i connect the middle one to another hard drive, that would act as slave, correct?

Correct.
:cool:

Ok, here's another question that has me confused.

My bro has a DVD burner around because he's building a comp and has some parts laying around. We connected it to my computer to burn a DVD.. I used the IDE cable from my CD-RW drive and it didn't work, it didnt use the HD with XP on it as a master, and the bios didn't detect either, however when I used the IDE cable from my second HD it works perfectly..any logical explanation? btw, the one connected to my other HD is black and the others are grey and doesn't have that thing that comes out the IDE cable that indicates how it goes, but it's a perfect fit. (It's not a floppy cable)

Check the jumpers on the drives. Most drives these days have
three choices, Master, Slave, and Cable Select. Either have both drives set to
CS, or set one as Master and one to Slave to force the configuration.
:cool: