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Is there such a cable that connects a 34 pin Floppy Cable plug for the 3.5" Floppy Drive as well as a 40 pin IDE plug for the Zip Drive to the Mother Board so that the Floppy Drive and Zip Drive are all on the same cable or is that not possible;
if not are there any alternate possibilities that might work?
Thank you.
That is not possible. A floppy drive doesn't work on IDE as .ZIP/CD/HD's do.
There are external versions of .ZIP drives that use USB/Parallel.
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There are options to run this 3.5 floppy on an existing USB port. Google for the proper cable assembly.
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Not correct ntengineer, LS-120 Superdisks drives, which are floppy drives and can be used with 1.44mb floppies up to the 120mb Superdisks and are connected via IDE cable can still be had. A link: http://www.computerhope.com/help/su... They are older technology, but still can be had via ebay, or googled for sale at relatively inexpensive prices, and they perform. I have one in an older IBM from 1999 which came from the factory with one in it, never had a bit of trouble with it.
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Yeah, that is what I thought, just IDE for the Zip Drive then;
anyone know of a reputable place that sells 40 pin 4 device(includes motherboard controller plug) IDE cable 24" as I already have a 40 pin 4 device cable 38", but have been unable to locate a 24" unfortunately?
Also,
there are 3 port PCI 2.0 USB cards that state that they have 2 external ports and 1 internal port;
is there actually an internal USB port that can use a USB/IDE cable internally to hook up an IDE device to the internal port or no?
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There is no such thing as a 4 device IDE cable. I don't know what you have, possibly SCSI but it isn't IDE. IDE controllers can only handle 2 drives per controller.
In answer to the second question there are add in USB controller cards that do have an internal connector. This is designed to connect a card reader. There may be some MBoards also setup that way but I personally haven't come across one.
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The Hard Drives are on a separate IDE cable of which there are 2, the other IDE cable is for 2 Disk Drives and the Zip Drive and the internal USB/IDE cable operates internal devices quite well.
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Are you stating you have a working system with two hard drives a Zip drive and a USB/IDE drive all on one cable connected to one IDE controller?
Clarify this for us please.
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Look for an R-Driver 3 cable. It allows you to use this 3.5 floppy thru a USB port. The cable also allows SCSI and IDE connections as well.
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I have 2 Hard Drives(HDD) on 1 IDE cable and 2 Disk Drives(DVD) on a separate IDE cable which also has a Zip Drive connected to it and I was also able to use an IDE/USB cable to operate any of the above mentioned internal devices as well, but can only hook up one device at a time when using the internal IDE/USB cable and if I use it I disconnect the IDE cable that it would normally use and the floppy drive of course has its own floppy cable.
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Then what is a internal USB/IDE? You still didn't answer my direct question. Do you have three or possibly FOUR devices on ONE IDE cable that is connected to an IDE controller?
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The link below is for a reseller of IDE cables.
Note the quote from that site concerning how many devices can be supported and why more connectors MAY be supplied.
Please enlighten me if it is possible to use three devices on an IDE controller I would be interested in this. Many folks here would also be interested.
http://www.cablewholesale.com/specs...
“IDE cables are designed to connect internal devices in your computer to the motherboard. The devices would include; CD-ROMs, Zip drives, hard drives, DVD-ROMs, CD burners, etc. IDE slots on the motherboard can only support up to 2 devices. Some IDE cables have more connectors. Those cables are for cases or situations where you need to have a longer cable or to have some variety and options to place the devices where you choose”.
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Normally I would agree, but I would say that the statement is not necessarily true as I was able to have 2 devices (2 Hard drives HDD) on 1 IDE cable and 3 devices (2 Disk Drives DVD and a Zip Drive) on another IDE cable, (the floppy drive of course has its own floppy cable); now granted I am not using all 3 devices at the same time on the 1 IDE cable so maybe that has something to do with it and also I had to experiment with different BIOS settings as well and was able to do this on more than one computer.
I was also able to take an IDE/USB cable and use it internally and connect it to the internal USB port on the USB PCI Card and attach it to one of the above mentioned internal devices after first disconnecting the device from its IDE cable and it worked as well.
Hope that helps.
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Did you have the TWO hard drives and the Zip drive connected at all times? Did you ever use the Zip drive? Which settings in the BIOS are you referring to?
As far as using the internal USB port with an adapter cable for a harddrive goes I personally think adding a controller card would be preferable. Both cost about the same amount.
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The 2 Hard Drives have their own IDE cable, the 2 Disk Drives share their IDE cable with the Zip Drive; yes the Zip Drive works, but I didnt use the Zip Drive while using either of the Disk Drives as it wouldnt be necessary anyway.
Concerning the BIOS, each computer has slightly different settings and I just experimented with them to see if any one setting was better than another; such as setup, boot order, features, etc. nothing in particular as its not an exact science or anything and computers are just weird that way sometimes.
You probably know more about this than I do as I am not a wizard or anything, other than that I really dont know what to tell you other than it works, maybe it works by accident then if its not supposed to work, I really couldnt tell you.
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The point I was looking for was this. If a hard drive has both data and power cables connected and the controller is Enabled in the BIOS the drive are always working.
I can't see how this setup would work at all. There is no accident about it. If I am wrong this would be great news for many users that have migrated IDE drives to newer computers that may have only ONE IDE controller.
Semantics beings what it is, I have asked for clarification on points here multiple times and your answer is not direct enough for me to be sure what the answer really is.
I will ask again. Do you have Three drives connected to the same DATA cable and all have power cables connected and this setup allowed all three devices to function as designed. I understand you did not access more than one at a time. That is the nature of PATA controllers anyway.
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I have been polite and have answered your questions several times; I fail to see the point of explaining this over and over.
One of the IDE cables has 2 devices connected to it (2 HDD Hard Drives) these 2 devices have power cables connected to them and operate normally.
Another one of the IDE cables has 3 devices connected to it (2 DVD Disk Drives and a Zip Drive make 3 devices) these 3 devices have power cables connected to them and the devices operate normally.
There is nothing else to explain...
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Frankenstein
You have now answered my lingering question and I apologize for overlooking the obvious here. I kept saying 2 hard drives and a Zip drive and you didn't correct me so I made that statement again. You have 2 optical drives and a zip drive.
If optical drives have no disk in the tray they may not be actually accessing the controller, even when connected.
On the other hand hard drive run continuously. I think this may explain why your setup works.
It is still surprising to learn this will work at all but I think it may be due to the nature of the installed devices. I am pretty sure if two hard drives and the Zip drive were connected it wouldn't work.
Sorry again for the confusion.
I have learned something new today.
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Actually I stated that the 2 Hard Drives(HDD) were on 1 IDE cable and the 2 Disk Drives (DVD) including the Zip Drive were on 1 IDE cable.
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Unfortunately after further testing the IDE cable with 2 Disk Drives and 1 Zip Drive does not work properly although they were detected and seemed to operate normally, was only able to get 1 Disk Drive and the Zip Drive to work properly and was unable to get the other Disk Drive to work correctly even after changing the drive letters and such in Disk Management; more than likely attributed to IDE slots on the motherboard only being able to support up to 2 devices at a time, was afraid that might happen as its not an exact science or anything, but had to at least try, will just have to use an IDE PCI Card for the Zip Drive then.
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Thanks for getting back to us and clarifying the status.
Referring back to the quote in #14 above it is understandable that you might think this should work because there are more than two connectors on the cable.
Back in the day when both 5 1/4 and 3 1/2 floppy drives were common, the cables often had FOUR connectors on them. Two for each type, which ARE different. Of course only two could be used at a time because the floppy controller would only support two.
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It would be a logical presumption one would think; I was disappointed however as it seemed like it was going to work, anyway the IDE PCI Card should take care of the Zip Drive.
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