IDE Cables

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CompuGeek247

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Hi i just bought a a 40 gig harddrive. I just got it and it looks like i dont have an extra slot on my IDE Cable left. This is my 3rd hardrive. I have C drive/D drive, And now E drive if i can connect it. Ive been looking at sites for a ide cable with a 4th pin connector but I cant seem to find them. The most is 3 connections. Thats only for 2 hardrives. Can anyone show me a site where i can buy a IDE connector where i can connect 3 hardrives to them? Thank you. Any other help would be useful to so thanks!
 
Well, as far as I know, unless you use any other technology like SCSI, RAID etc you cannot connect more than 4 IDE devices to the motherboard. They are Primary Master/Slave and secondary master/slave. Your BIOS would not support neither detect any extra drives. To have 3 HDDs, you should just connect the 3rd one (and the 4th one / the CDRom) to the second IDE cable (secondary drives) ...
 
Not true about only 4 IDE devices. On most motherboards today, yes 4 IDE devices initially, but were you to put say another PCI IDE controller on your board, or if your board was like the ABIT Bp6 and came with 4 controllers, you can easily have 6, 8, and even more devices. It is limited by the number of controllers you have, not a static limitation.
 
thanks again. Will serial Ata do the trick in getting my third drive to work. I dont want to feel like an ***** spending 80 bucks then not being able to use it.
 
Serial ATA will only string devices if they are serial ATA drives to begin with. The converter cards, I am not sure if they would allow you to string more then four regular IDE devices together.

however, you said you only have 2 drives?

Do you have 2 hard drives, and 2 CD/DVD drives? If you only have 2 or 3 total, then you will still have room to add the new disc. Your board should have 2 IDE controllers, each with 1 cable that has 2 connectors.
 
i have a cd drive and cd-rw drive. Then i have 3 hardrives. thats 5 drives in total. i still dont understand what you were saying. but it doesnt sound like it will handle 5 if im interpreting you correctly
 
You are out of luck then unless you buy a seperate controller. you could always put the drive towards building yourself a new system ;)

I am not sure if serial ATA converter cards for existing disks allow expansion beyond 4 devices, that is something to look into.
 
no i refuse to let this get me. theres always a way. i know im not the only person in the world who has wanted more then 2 hardrives unless theres something wrong with the wrold. there are ways.
 
Seeing as you have an Asus A7N8X-DX mainboard, which I think may come with a serial to IDE converter (I know Abit supplies one with their board), you should be able to connect that 3rd hard drive to one of the available serial connectors (using the supplied adapter), and still have one connector spare, for an additional serial drive should you wish to add one later.
 
There are IDE to Serial ATA adapters, but I do not understand why you would want to do that unless you have a SATA controller already?

The best answer here is an add on PCI ATA-100/133 card.
 
well Ok Soul, you're right
i'm never thinking of adding PCI controllers though :)
a friend of mine even found an extension card to be able to use 16 PCI cards on a mobo heheh .. :p
 
Originally posted by DigitAlex
i'm never thinking of adding PCI controllers though :)
a friend of mine even found an extension card to be able to use 16 PCI cards on a mobo heheh .. :p

Your friend is using one.. Why won't you? :p
 
Most defently get a simple ATA Card. Just go spend $20 on an ATA133 PCI card thats all. Check out newegg.com they have them the cheapest.

Simple...done ;)
 
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