Thread: How to extend an IDE cable??

I would recommend you try using a usb external drive case that way you can run the shielded usb cable, which I think come pretty long.

I think an extended fro rear to front IDE cable would be very hard if not impossible.
my .02
Will

IDE is limited to 3'
best bet is to buy something like this:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pnpgadgets/co-0801.html
if youve got an epia, youve got firewire on board. Firewire will have more bandwith, and distance (i believe) than say usb.
my $.04

If you want an long cable to work it had better be 80 conductor (ATA 66/100) ribbon cable. People around here have had success with IDE cables as long as 15 feet.

I made one of those 15' IDE cables and I got it to work, but to be honest it was a pain in the a$$. Also, this will only work with standard drives since the slim drives don't put out the voltage needed over distance..... Get a Storix USB drive with a long cable, and if you need a longer one get a USB repeater cable.

For cable on the IDE I used shilded 30' printer (28 stran) cable split in two

Originally Posted by none

If you want an long cable to work it had better be 80 conductor (ATA 66/100) ribbon cable. People around here have had success with IDE cables as long as 15 feet.

Experimenting with a roll of 40-conductor IDE cable and IDC crimper I had I found that every ATA33 CD-ROM drive I tested worked perfectly fine at 20' A benchmark (nero cdspeed) showed no differences in speed between a 20' cable and a 18" cable. However anything over 20' and XP's Event Viewer would show errors had occured and drop the drive to PIO Mode (2k/XP automatically put any IDE device that has more than 6 CRC errors occur into PIO Mode, only way to reset this is to remove the IDE controller from Device Manager and let windows redetect it). The 2 hardrives I tested on seemed to be more sensitive to cable length (due to higher data transfer rate most likely, more data=more chances for errors to occur) None of the ATA33 hardrives I tested would work at all over 12', not even detected by the mobo.

The CD drives performed no differently with a 80 conductor cable. Worked fine a 20', errors with anything over that. The hardrive on the otherhand (ATA100) would not work at anything over 6'. And even at 6' it would sometimes get bumped to PIO Mode. I'd imagine 5' would be error free.

I would definately have to say you would not have as much success in a typical car, too many sources of interference.


But I agree with what others have said. Its best to use a USB 2.0 or FireWire external drive. You can get bare Fire/USB to IDE bridge boards without the ugly enclosure. Then you just have to figure out how to get power to the drive. FireWire and USB are designed for longer cable lengths.

The device i posted (with enclosure) draws power for the drive from the firewire bus. the same site also has one wihtout enclosure.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pnpgadgets/co-0802.html

Originally Posted by mugu

The device i posted (with enclosure) draws power for the drive from the firewire bus. the same site also has one wihtout enclosure.
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pnpgadgets/co-0802.html

Do firewire or usb provide 12 volt dc or 5 volt dc? Do full size hard drives and cd/dvd drives use 12 volt or 5 volts? I know laptop drives use 5 volt.