silly question

[mrlucio]

Hey guys and gals, do all motherboards handle 40 and 80 pin ide cables? Or does this depend on the harddrive only?

[reboot]

Yes, and no...
All newer stuff, and most older, will support CS. It's very rare to find a mobo or drive that won't.
If you don't have 80 wire cables (and won't buy any for whatever reason) even the newest stuff will support 40 wire, jumpered master/slave, although at a noticably slower speed.

[mrlucio]

that answers my question. I understand that 80 will work with ata 66/100/133 drives. will it work with ata33? or do i have to use a 40 for the drive to work?

[Confused]

Originally posted by mrlucio
Hey guys and gals, do all motherboards handle 40 and 80 pin ide cables? Or does this depend on the harddrive only?

80 wire and 40 wire both have 40 pin connectors.
Chas

[reboot]

Most, if not all, optical devices are still ATA33, so the answer is yes, 40 or 80 wire will work with any/all drives/motherboards.

[mrlucio]

ahhhh I get it. Does it matter if the harddrive is slave? Or should it be master at all times? Thanks for all the info guys...

[reboot]

Hard drives can be mounted anywhere you like. Some older BIOS' would ONLY allow booting from primary master, but newer stuff let's you boot from any drive in any configuration, even raid, cd, secondary slave, whatever...

[mrlucio]

COOL! Thanks for all the info!!!!!!!