IDE Cable Oddities & CDROM

Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.

You cannot possibly use 36" cables. How the hell can you need over 24"?

Do NOT post to multiple groups, always cross-post.

"William J." wrote in message
...
Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.

William J. wrote:
Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.

William,

You are right the 36" rounded cables have proven unreliable. You are
better staying with 24" or less. If you are sure that you have the
cable installed correctly (blue to the board) and your drive
positions/switches set properly, you'd be right to suspect the cable.

Enkidu

It shouldn't matter which port the drives are on. The IDE driver will sort
this out. Ensure that DMA is set and if necessary see
http://www.gmayor.com/cd_writer_udma_mode.htm . If you have older hardware,
then you may need an updated driver.

--

Graham Mayor



William J. wrote:
Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Try buying a 80-wire one instead (as required for ATA66 and higher). It will
work just as well on a 40-wire unit, but the extra ground wires will make it
less sensitive to echo and overtalk.

Mike.

Strictly speaking, anything over 18" flat cable is out of the IDE
standards and may or not work depending on many variables.

I've had similar problems which were solved by replacing a 24" round
cable with an 18" flat cable.

I've since replaced my full tower case with a mid tower partially
because of these problems.


On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 21:21:24 -0500, William J.
wrote:

Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.

Email:
User: roy27614
ISP: mindspring.com

Any cables longer than 18 inches are not guaranteed to work by the IDE
standard, and neither are rounded cables..

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/


"William J." wrote in message
...
Been having lots of buffer underrun problems. Both my cd reader and cd
writer are on the same IDE channel. So I decided to move my cd reader
to the same channel as the hard drive so the cd writer would be on its
own IDE channel.

I bought a 24" cable last week but returned it because I could not
reach from the cd reader to the hard drive. Than I bought a 36" ide
cable. Its a standard 40 pin ide cable for hard drives - nothing
special but its teflon.

Anyway the hard disk is not recognized when I boot the machine up. Its
like its not there. So I put in another shorter IDE cable and the
machine recognized it. There is something about the cable the PC does
not like. I have heard that with a 36" cable I am play with fire and
could have unpredictable results. The only differences I can see is
the ide cable that works has one pin blocked off, the one that does
not work has all the pins open. I though it would not make a
difference.

Any ideas? Othewise I am going to have to put in another IDE
controller because CD to CD just does not work.

Thanks in advance.