[ox411]

as i was installing new hard drives a few questions came to mind....

-the IDE cables in my computer have 2 female plugs i have a hard drive and a DVD drive connected to each cable. does it make any difference at all as to which drive is the master and which is the slave?

-some of the IDE cables out there have grounding wires that are supposed to be connected to one of the screws that mount the drive to the case. ive been reading in some places that its a bad idea to connect this grounding wire to the hard drives. theres also a grounding wire on the cable that goes to my 'A' drive. could someone tell me if these grounding wires should be connected and where?

thanks alot
-josh

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1) Normally no.

2) There's no such thing as a grounding wire so far as an IDE cable is concerned. They only carry data to and forth, no grounding is necessary. I can only assume you're referring to the red line on the IDE cable. If so, these are so you can work out which way to connect the cable if it isn't keyed already. The same principle works for the floppy connector which again doesn't need grounding.

[Neil Jones]

1) Normally no.

2) There's no such thing as a grounding wire so far as an IDE cable is concerned. They only carry data to and forth, no grounding is necessary. I can only assume you're referring to the red line on the IDE cable. If so, these are so you can work out which way to connect the cable if it isn't keyed already. The same principle works for the floppy connector which again doesn't need grounding.

[ox411]

thanks for your answers....

the grounding wire im talking about is actually an additional wire outside of the IDE (or floppy) cable. its a black wire with a little crimped on circular connector. the screw that mounts the drive to the bay fits perfectly in the metal crimped connector.

the cables are pretty nice cables from cooler master. i bought them a while ago and now i need another IDE cable. i was kind of wondering about the ground wire because most IDE cables dont seem to have them and some of the reading ive been doing online seems to suggest that they are a bad idea.


here is a link to the product page for the IDE cable. you can see the wire im talking about in the pictures. the 'A' drive cable has the same wire.

http://www.coolermas...= UTC-A24 Cable

thanks for your help
-josh

[Neil Jones]

In all honesty I really cannot see any point to a grounding wire on an 80-way IDE cable. They are more expensive than a bog-standard IDE cable but having said that, since standard IDE cables are far cheaper and and literally just plug-and-play (so to speak), I cannot really see any point to them. I'd argue they're gimmicks for see-through panel side cases and not a not else.