I got a Pioneer A06 off of ebay for $120 but the only catch is that the seller said there was no IDE cable. Is this cable necessary? and where can i get one cheap?
The IDE cable is about as necessary as it gets! That is the cable that allows your drive to communicate with the rest of your computer. They can be had dirt cheap at any computer supply store. With a DVD burner be sure to get an 80 WIRE 40 PIN cable. There are also 40 wire/40 pin cables but those will give you problems so steer clear of them. *Edit* Sorry your second post didn't show up. You can use the existing cable, but make sure it's an 80 wire. _X_X_X_X_X_[small]Gun Control - The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, strangled with her pantyhose is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to the police how her attacker recieved that fatal bullet wound.[/small]
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2777495055&category=168 is this a good one to get?
This happens to be a topic I was just wondering about myself. Why is it better to run the 80 wire ide cables for optical drives? I need to know this cause another forum member was stating that optical drives can use 40 wire types, and that using the 80 wire type doesn't give any advantage. I currently use only 80 wire IDE cables throughout both of my machines , so I have no wayf confirming the other members statement. Can anyone set this straight as to what the true facts are? thank you!
It shouldn't make any difference since optical drives run should be either PIO or ATA33 devices, neither of which makes use of the extra 40 wires. They're for ATA66/100/133 drives. In fact, as long as you're using old fashioned ribbon cables (instead of the newer bundled cables) it's probably better to use a 40 wire cable if you don't have any hard drives on that IDE channel because they're less fragile. I've had a couple of 80 wire cables destroyed by simply bending them 1 too many times while installing drives.
Hiya Guys, [bold]vurbal:[/bold] you said Somehow I don't think that is QUITE RIGHT. LOTS of optical drives nowadays (DVD-BURNERS ESPECIALLY) operate at UDMA 2, which NEEDS the 80 wire IDE cable, otherwise the O/S drops it down to PIO support (dog slow and EATS CPU resources). Yeah, it will work with the old 40 wire cables, just nowhere near its potential. [bold]Nephilim[/bold] got it right Best practice is: Writer as Master on a channel OF ITS OWN, with UDMA (80 wire/40 pin) cable. Have Fun...
Thanks Drchips for the tip,it's true after checking my settings,both my Dvd-rom and my writer are running in UDMA 2 mode, using 80 wire cables.
Nephilim, yeah, it would be nice, though I see PATA remaining the default for optical drives for quite a while (cost and requirement). Do you know of, or have you heard of, any optical drives with SATA interfaces? I know you can get SATA to PATA bridge modules (and the inverse, PATA to SATA). Have Fun...
UDMA Mode 2 is ATA33 (ATA/ATAPI-4), and you don't need the extra wires for that interface. Look at the chart at the end of this page: http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/modesUDMA.html to see what the various UDMA modes are. Below that there's a couple of paragraphs that tell you which modes use which cable.
vurbal, you are correct in posting that link, and it is a good one; BUT, if I may quote the old adage: Theory and practice are the same, in theory; BUT theory and practice are NOT the same, in practice. Too often has it happened that a theoretically-correct 40 wire/40 pin IDE cable will only run in PIO mode. Where the install of the theoretically-not-required 80 wire/40 pin cable DOES allow UDMA support. Whether it is the drive manufacturers OR the chipset (as in motherboard) manufacturers OR the Windows implementation (M$ OR third-party drivers) at fault with respect to standards compliance, I do not know. Experience over these MANY years has shown me that, irrespective of the official (theory/standard) guidelines, a 80 wire/40 pin cable is NEEDED SO OFTEN that it is not worthwhile considering a 40 wire/40 pin cable at all. True INTEL motherboards SEEM to adhere to the standard pretty well, but the vast majority of the cheaper VIA/SiS chipsets I have had the misfortune to have to deal with have given me trouble. And to be honest, the cost differential is NEGLIGABLE in comparison to the time saved and frustration avoided. So, TECHNICALLY you are correct, but in practice it does not work like that often enough. If it seemed I was "dissing" you, please accept that was not my intention; merely putting forward "Best Practice". Have Fun...
drchips: No problem. I don't take much personally anyway. I've never seen the problem you described with a 40 pin cable with an ATA33 cable, which was the reason I recommended one, but if you've run into it I can see your point. In either case, it's usually best to use bundled cables, which I believe are all 80 wire. Interestingly, I have run into situations where a drive will perform better in PIO mode than UDMA, but that seems to be a Windows issue, completely independent of the cable or drive. I had to set my DVD burner to PIO mode until I restored it recently, and it has an 80 wire cable. Now it works fine in UDMA mode.
drchips - The only PC mag I really follow is MaximumPC and they keep mentioning that optical drives will be migrated to SATA sooner than we all may think. This is great news in the fact that they simply plug in, no jumper settings or different cables etc. to confuse those not familiar with the innards of a PC. Not to mention nincompoops like me who faithfully forget to check jumpers before installing a drive!
