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BigJohnson
12-14-2007, 01:46 PM
I am building a computer for a friend of mine and I ordered this motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128059) and it came with a IDE cable for 2 connections. I however, have a CD-rw, a dvd rom and one hard drive that have to go in there. All of these are older units so I am trying to put them in the IDE. My question is can I use a different IDE cable with 3 connectors and will it still work? I don't want to overload the motherboard, but I have never had this issue before. And to throw this out there, I know nothing about SATA.

Thanks.

Airbozo
12-14-2007, 04:34 PM
no. Ide is only capable of a master and slave on one controller.

No sata drives?

Cannibal23
12-14-2007, 06:24 PM
if you only have one ide channel and 3 ide drives to use you could get a usb external box and use that for on the of cd drives. i know a company named onspec makes a universal external usb encloser with a removable front panel. you can mount cd dvd and hard disks in it. i have one here at my desk, couldent find a link, ask your local supplier

BigJohnson
12-14-2007, 06:49 PM
The board has sata, but I don't think any of the drives are sata capable. I was thinking of trying to come up with a sata hdd, but I didnt want to spend someone elses money unless I really have too. And I want to mount it on the inside. He's not too good with computers and I dont want him poking around.

calumc
12-14-2007, 07:13 PM
just get a ide>usb cable.
Theyre easy to pick up on ebay

Cannibal23
12-14-2007, 07:18 PM
its really too bad he dosent have a dvd burner cause then you could just use that and get rid of the seccond drive. there pretty inexpensive these days. maybe something to concider. looks to me one way or another you will either loose some functionality or have to spend some cash on one thing or another. to quote the templar knight from indiana jones movie "you must choose..... wisely"

BigJohnson
12-14-2007, 07:22 PM
What about something like a IDE/SATA converter (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232004)? I could find one of these somewhere. I did some research on SATA, but I dont have the computer in front of me. So I will have to go home and make sure that nothing has a SATA connection. Its just that the machine I pulled the CD, DVD and HD out of were all connected via the same cable...

BigJohnson
12-14-2007, 07:25 PM
its really too bad he dosent have a dvd burner cause then you could just use that and get rid of the seccond drive. there pretty inexpensive these days. maybe something to concider. looks to me one way or another you will either loose some functionality or have to spend some cash on one thing or another. to quote the templar knight from indiana jones movie "you must choose..... wisely"

Yeah, but he does some burning music from multiple cds and doesnt really understand the idea of ripping, so it would be tedious of him to constantly remove cds and put them back in. I'm trying to get him along on the path, but one step at a time.

Cannibal23
12-14-2007, 08:15 PM
Its just that the machine I pulled the CD, DVD and HD out of were all connected via the same cable...

3 devices on one cable? you sure they arent SCSI devices? i take it the cable looks like a regular ide cable (could be a lil wider) if thats the case you can count the pins on the back of hard drive where the ribon cable connects. if theres more then 40 then its a scisi device and you will need a scsi controler.

SgtM
12-14-2007, 09:26 PM
nevermind.

BigJohnson
12-14-2007, 10:32 PM
Nevermind that last comment. I got home and looked. Apparently I wasnt paying very good attention when I took it apart. There is a master and a slave IDE connector. But the truth comes down to me being an idiot. Not only do I now have to figure this out I have to send the power supply back. I didnt test it before I set the whole machine up and guess what? Thats right, defect.

Cannibal23
12-15-2007, 04:24 AM
well that kinda sucks dude but at least it buys you a little more time to figure out what the plan is. ya if your devices have master and slave jumper settings on them then its definately not scsi and you definately didnt have all 3 on one cable.

BigJohnson
12-15-2007, 10:51 AM
Well I talked to him this morning. He wants to know if I can do both. One being get him a SATA drive, and the other to get a conversion cable so he can still have his old drive and that way I could slave it so he wont lose any information. And I talked to the psu people last night. They told me a few things I could do to see if it was really a defect. Apparently the 115v/230v switch wasn't fully in the 115v spot. By switching it back and forth I got it to work. I hate when no matter what you do when trying to trouble shoot nothing works. Then when tech support tells you to do it, it works just fine. I know what I'm doing but it didnt do that last time! But anyway, it works. Now I just have to find my keyboard and mouse to hook up to it. And build a face for the floppy drive.

He is a pro photographer and wanted me to put in a card reader. Well he chose a 3.5" card reader, and still wants a floppy drive. So I bought some styrene and I am going to dremel the floppy part of the old computer out and fit it in the new one and build a styrene face. I will post some pics. I got lazy and dicouraged last night. But I will be out of town this weekend so probably monday or tuesday.

Thanks for everyone for your help. +rep

crenn
12-15-2007, 06:08 PM
You could also get a SATA DVD burner to replace one or both of the drive.

BigJohnson
12-17-2007, 11:34 AM
He doesnt have a dvd player besides the one in the computer. I helped him move. His phone has to be the first experimental phone before they got rid of the rotary phone. I was just trying to get him something that worked and still use his old stuff. He wants to feel like he still has a bit of the old computer with him. Then he brings up maybe he could just do an external. 'Hey *snaps fingers* focus!' He wants this new machine for a new digital camera that he hasnt bought yet.