Hi, I have seen quite a few of these cables with the "nick" cut into them. Only on the 80 pin cables though, never on the older (and thicker) 40 pin cables. Some were in PC manafacturers PC's, Some supplied with Retail boxed HDD's and possibly with the cables from Belkin too. Seems a silly extra measure to go to if the pin is locked out anyway. . . (!) Density:- Not just a measurement ~ Its a whole way of Life.! ! ! My Forums

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Hi OK for wire #20, that means if there was a nick it has to be pretty much in the middle (across) of the cable. Squirrel hope yours is in the middle. Also wire # 2, 19, 22,24,26,30 and 40 are earths (ground) Those wires could be cut and shouldn't affect a 80 wire cable too much. Wire # 32 isn't used anymore (needed for ata-2 however) But as Stuart remarks - it is an extra process to nick the cable for no extra benifit. (and risk ruining the cable in the process) Sadly my nick is near 36 and I expect counting (to determine wire number) was conducted with the belief the outer wire was a ground and not #1. This being the case I'll briefly share my experince of a "nicked" cable. It looks like I can lose all hope for a reprieve for the so-called friends, who had one of my computers for a few months as an extra computer for network games. I felt I knew the cable had been altered while it was away, as the hard drive diagnostic was (at one stage) running with no problems. (Note: I only tested the nicked cable after determining the nick was in the earth and it should be safe to test.) I was told about it having some sort of "partition table problem" a week after they moved house. I got it back some weeks after they moved house. It was still at their old residence. Summing up I believe the guy meant to get #36. He believes himself to be some sort of expert and that I know not much about much (he is extremely narcissistic so thats no surprise) Unchecked - a missing #36 would have lead to corruption on other drives I would have unwittingly installed in the primary channel as well. (eg for data rescue) There have been many inquiries from him about how I am getting on fixing it, but I lie and say I've been too busy/tired/sick and haven't had a real look at it. [I'm, really sorry to spoil his little prank] I'm also not the sort of person to run off and accuse someone but no one would be wrong to say I live a little bit in denial. There is a long long sad story to explain how (I think) it all goes together. All the little things (clues) which happened from a couple of months before they left and the week where they were vague, non descript, matter of fact about my machine having a problem. In hindsight it adds up to spell "one of my so-called friends is a total narcissistic lowlife", but anyways ...

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You are a very paranoid person aren’t you? LOL There’s nothin’ wrong with that! But, what you’ve got there my friend, is a CS (Cable select) cable. The cut is on the slave side (it’s wire 28 I believe) and it’s there so the hard drive controller can tell which drive is master and which is slave. Symbios Y!

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Hi I know 40 wire cables were varied, especially for cable select. (where you might expect to see #28 cut and the middle connector becoming the master) I don't think this holds for an 80 wire cable meeting the ata standard though. Anyhow as mentioned by all - probably a wire that has no use. (eg ground , #20 key). Some further reading. pcguide 80 wire cables pcguide using cable select

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Actually, some really cheap 80 wire cables don't support cable select. But that's very easy to fix, just cut out a peice of wire 28 at the end of the cable and there you go! You just saved $1! LOL Symbios Y!

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Ok, time for a littel update. I understand what everyone is saying about the pin 20. If you look at the connector head on, you will sometimes see that it is blocked, meaning there is no place for a pin to go into. this is not the case for me. starting from pin 1, the red line on the cable, my little cutout piece is on cable 66. only 14 cables over from the other side of the ribbon cable. its about 1/2 inch up from motherboard connector and about a 1/4 inch of the cable is missing. a pictorial, pin 1 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| This is not 80 pins, but as u can see there is a missing section on the rite hand side fourth row.

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Hi Ooh, nice diagram. One look at it and I realised I'd made a mistake. I have to say I'm very embarrassed. (perhaps I'm totally stupid after all). The wire I was worried about was 33 not 36. When I got the nick in my cable (or found it?) its just like yours but only 1/4 in from the connector. I don't think (IMHO) this nick between the Fisrt data addressing bit and the PDiag signal wire is part of the manufacturing process. Seagates diagnostic can detect the cable having issues. If your cable is made by foxconn then its posible the problem is factory orientated. (as my cable is made by foxconn) Strangely I thought for a bit, the manufactures meant to cut #34 so the 80 wire presence detect signal was inactive, making it suitable for cd roms devices. HOW did I get it so wrong? -- For me it happened a while back and have left it buried in a box of other never to required items. From time to time referring back to other items that are broken/useless in the box, I see it. I guess at one stage I looked at it and the wire was below the 4th set of rows counting back from 40. For whatever reason, in a period after I worked on the problem cable, the number 36 got stuck in my mind, even when I knew the nick was between a data addressing bit and pdiag wire. [ie between 33 and 34 ] - a red faced anenefan

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