cables?

[ammo]

I'm buying a OEM hardrive that only comes with the drive itself. What round cable size do I need. It's for a 80GB western digital harddrive. Also do I need any kind of software for it?

[Spyda]

you need to get an 80 wire IDE cable, and you can download the Western Digital diagnostics program off their site

[ammo]

Thanks Spyda


I was looking at newegg.com and can I use an ATA 133 cable for an ATA 100 hard drive. Also it only says how many inches the cable is, nothing about 80 wire. Can anyone help?

[scott_d]

AtA 133 is an 80 wire cable and they are backwards compatible, meaning you can use it for ATA 100 just fine. As for length, your not supposed to get over 18" for a hard drive, but it dosnet matter as much for things like cd-rom's and dvd-roms and such, the reason being that the longer they are, the more interferance can "interfere" with the data transfer, possibly leading to corruption problems and stuff.
HTH

[ammo]

Do you suggest a 12" cable or 10", and will I need 3 of these cable so I can hook up my dvd and cdrw?

[ammo]

I looked at the westerndigital website and they have a lot of downloads. Which downloads am I suppose to download, and should I download it off another computer and use it for my new harddrive?

[Shifty Shellshock]

you dont need the western digital diagnostics, they are just a few utilities for the WD drives, you dont need it for the drive to work, it will work spot on without it

[Cricket]

Originally posted by ammo Do you suggest a 12" cable or 10", and will I need 3 of these cable so I can hook up my dvd and cdrw?

Get at least a 18" cable that has 3 connectors (motherboard, master, slave). In fact, if you have a fairly big case, you may want to get a 24" cable.

Each cable connects two drives to each IDE controller. The IDE controller supports 2 IDE drives each. Most motherboards have 2 IDE controllers, so you can connect 4 IDE devices to your system. If you want to install more IDE devices, you can install a PCI IDE controller card which gives you the option to install 4 more IDE devices.

Cricket

[glc]

If this is a complete new build, your motherboard will come with IDE cables.

[ammo]

Can I use a cd-rom cable for the 1.44 floppy drive

[ammo]

Also does anyone know where to get red transparent audio cables for my cd-rom to sound card connection?

[Nuclear Krusader]

You cannot use an IDE cable for the floppy drive, as they are different.

Follow glc's advice and stop worrying about it. The cables will come with the mobo. Altho they will be flat ones. Personally, I don't care for rounded cables, I have heard they can sometimes be cause of data corruption.

[ammo]

Thanks nuclear but I want red transparent cables instead of the manufacturers cables

[glc]

You don't need an audio cable if you enable digital audio for the CD drive, that way the audio goes through the PCI bus.

[Nuclear Krusader]

Er, what glc? I didn't know about that option.

How do I do that?

[Spyda]

yea, that CD audio cable nacks me off, if i can get rid of it, brill!!

how,..... how?

[ammo]

How do you do that glc?

[Spyda]

aha, found it, its in device manager, just click properties on the CD drives and its an option under the Properties tab

[ammo]

My case is 20.9"x8.1"x20.5"(HxWxD). Should I get 18" or 24" cables, and what is the best brand on newegg.com to get?

[glc]

I have no idea - I dont do round cables, I use the standard flat cables that come with motherboards.

[Nuclear Krusader]

If your case is a high tower get the 24" cables.