Hi there, I have a PowerMac G4/450 with internal DVD-RAM drive and Zip drive. Once I got cable modem, I filled my internal hard drive with all sorts of goodies (thank you, Napster!) and so I added a second internal hard drive. I'm embarassed to admit it, but now my second drive is also nearly full and so I've purchased a third internal hard drive. The problem is that although there are two additional free (available) power connectors (and plenty of physical space) for additional internal hard drives, there is no available ATA cable. I've searched my logic board for an additional connector for an ATA cable but there is none. The only two cables (each with two connectors) are being used for the DVD-RAM drive, the Zip drive, and the two hard drives. How do I go about adding this new third internal hard drive (or can I not do that)? I realize that I can buy all sorts of USB, FireWire, and SCSI drives but I don't want to do that as I prefer an internal drive. If you have any suggestions, could you please email them to me at janssen@qa4u.com. Thank you! Scott PS - My card slots are all full, by the way. I've got two display cards, a SCSI card for my scanner, and an audio card for my Digi 001.

You should look into Sonnet PCI IDE card. It costs about $100.oo and it can handle 4 IDE drive

I don't know what the scsi requirements for your scanner are, or how great a scanner is, but if you plan to keep the scsi scanner, I'd suggest the following: Investigate the pci cards made by adaptec. Pick a dual channel card which provides some flavor of ultra scsi while being backward compatible with slower standard scsi. Make sure that the dual channels can operate at different speeds, because you will be using your scanner and other standard scsi devices on one channel (The External Port on the card). You'll be using the ultra scsi on the other channel (on the Internal ribbon connectors). Buy one or two ultra scsi drives and mount them to the middle and front brackets. Buy a two device ribbon cable long enough to route to both drives. Power the drives from the connectors you observed previously. Be sure you do not plug any slow devices into the fast channel, or it will slow down to match the speed of the slowest item. Be sure the internal devices are all on the fast channel. Before you embark on any portion of this advice, though... The scsi speeds are better and generally advised for direct to disc recording of audio and video. However, they will always be more expensive than drives of ultra ata/ide/udma types. When you add up the cost of the dual-channel card, the cable, extra cost of superior scsi drives, and your time... You may find that it makes financial sense to ditch your scsi-card in favor of an ultra ata/100 pci controller card and replace your scanner with a firewire or usb scanner of current quality. The main factors are: how much speed do you need from your scanner vs. your hard drives? how much can you afford the top of the line set up vs. standard tech? will you use any other scsi devices? One last comment: i noticed a Maxtor 40 gig external firewire drive for $260 and a similar 80 gig model for $370 at Outpost.com. I know you want internal... but, man, those prices are attractive. (i thought i might take the drive over to a friends mac and trade mp3's without the dsl middleman!) Hope this helps. Cheers, brad o.s.g.