i'm having trouble with my ide cables and am pretty sure i need to buy a new one, but i'm clueless with all of this 40/80/master/slave stuff. i've had an 80wire cable connected to my internal HD and a 40wire that says "master" connected to my DVD writer, but the HD has always had troubles and with multiple internals of mine failing, i switched the ide cables around with the 40wire master on my internal and that seems to load up fine. it's the 80wire that's all bent, crooked and messy. when i try copying off files from DVDs now (since switching the cables), they usually get an error on a random file and won't copy. do i need a new cable? are there settings i need to change? i'm sure it's something silly and small that i'm doing wrong. any advice or help is appreciated! especially if you want to point me in the right direction to buying a new one if it's needed :]

80 wire cables are backward compatible with very few exceptions. If the 80 wire you have gave you errors it may be a bad cable. The connectors ore the weak link. They are crimped on and don't always make a good connection to all the wires. You can use an 80 wire cable on any of your drives. No setting need to be changed. If your drives are setup using cable select you will need to connect the drive in the same position on the cable. If using Master/ slave settings you can connect the drive to either of the connectors. The black is master and grey the slave when using CS. The blue/red/yellow always goes to the MBoard. If the cable isn't colored as just described then it is not an 80 wire cable. Any computer shop should be able to supply you with two of them. If the cables are all twisted that may be due to attempting to connect a drive to the end when the middle would be easier. I just described the way things can be configured. IMO Master/ slave settings are usually preferable. An excellent online reseller is Newegg.com. Probably cheaper to buy locally but you decide. Below is a link to 18" IDE cables which is what you need. Google for more vendors or chaper pricing/shipping. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

The simple fact that your problems switched to the DVD drive when you switched cables would indicate a faulty cable. Put the 40-wire cable back on the DVD drive and get a new 80-wire cable for the HDD. Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.

i could buy that one and use it on the DVD writer, no? or would it be better to switch them back around and use the new one on my HD? just trying to fully make sure before i do anything!

To fully realize your hard disks capable speed you should use an 80 conductor cable on it. For the costs, I'd just get two new cables and use them on both. It's a good day when you learn something

it wouldn't matter which cable is used on which?

No, you can use either cable. The thing is that the 80 wire cable allows for faster data transfer through the cable In The Matters Of Style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, Stand Like A Rock "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."