hard drive ribbon sizes

[bluecjh]

I've received my new motherboard and noticed
that the ide ribbons are smaller than my present one.

Will it be ok to use the old larger ribbons with this board?,
(looks like the colored connector on the new ribbon to the motherboard is the same size as the old one)

thanks for your help

BlueCJH

 

[paparazi]

Cable length? No problem! using the older longer ones will be fine.
Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[VulcanJedi]

girls tell me length matters

Tranpkp

 

[bluecjh]

sorry no it's the width i'm worried about. (not joking)

thnks

BlueCJH

 

[VulcanJedi]

theres only so many interfaces. SATA, PATA, 3.5" ...etc
if it fits, it fits. length of cable should be indiffernt, if its not wide enough..hmm sorry you bought a laptop hard drive! kidding. Anyways should all be same width standard. Lengths can vary, you can get the master slaves, that are fairly long, you can pull really short cables from an external enclosure, or your Tivo or your xbox if you want....

Tranpkp

 

[bluecjh]

no you misunderstand,

i want to know if i can use my old cable as the
new one is narrower and so does not fit my hard drives.

The old cable obviously does fit my drives (and seemingly) has the same motherbourd connector, but is it the case that

if it fits. it will work?

thanks

BlueCJH

 

[LawnBoy]

The smaller width cable is probably for a floppy drive.

 

[paparazi]

Hmmmmm?? are you sure you are not looking at a floppy drive cable?
New motherboards typically come with:
1 X Floppy drive cable (narrow ribbon type cable with a twist one end)
1 X IDE cable (usually fine ultra type, blue one end)
1 X SATA cable (narrow flat, approx 12mm wide)

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[kmcferrin]

Without having provided us with the model of your motherboard or even a simple description of the cable it is somewhat difficult to determine exactly what you mean.

There are basically two common hard drive cable types, and they are IDE/ATA and SATA. The IDE/ATA cables are the wide flat ribbon cables that have sockets for the 40-pin connectors on IDE/ATA hard drives. These are the same cables that would be used for an IDE CD-ROM drive. The SATA cables are much narrower (about 1 centimeter) and are used only for SATA devices.

Most modern motherboards will ship with connectors onboard to allow you to use either type of drive. The only rule is that the connector and cable must match the drive type (obviously). If your motherboard has both IDE/ATA and SATA connectors on it, the you can still use the IDE/ATA connector and cable to hook up an IDE hard drive.

The only other possibility that comes to mind without knowing more info is that your new mainboard may have come with round IDE/ATA cables. These cables still have the same wide 40-pin connectors on each end, but instead of being a wide, flat ribbon they have rolled the cable into a narrower tube shape so that they do not interfere with airflow in the case as much. In that case, you can still use either IDE/ATA cable (flat or round).

If that doesn't help, try posting a description and model numbers.

 

[edfair]

Assuming that the connectors work to the drive the potential problems are one of speed (40 conductors can force slower transfer speeds) and of drive selection type. The colored connector that plugs to the motherboard is an indicator that the cable is set up for cable select rather than the more or less default master/slave of the 40 conductor previous cable.
In general, I would suggest that you resolve how the cable is narrower and use it if you possibly can. Or get a replacement 80 conductor high speed cable.
Normal IDE would have the same physical dimensions for the connectors at both ends of the ribbon, so it appears you have something special So unless the cable was built to plug into a laptop drive we are clueless.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[bluecjh]

yep it's the floppy cable and the hard drive cable is
missing.

i will use my old cable. thanks everyone great help.



BlueCJH