Cutting IDE cables?

[jere01]

Two questions here...

Is it really necessary to use those ATA100 cables for an ATA100 hard drive (to get the most speed) even if you only have one HD?

If you only have one item on an IDE cable can you cut the rest of the wire off after the first connector?

 

[sohcrates]

yes, you need the 80 pin cable

i have heard that you can cut off the rest of the wire, but cannot verify this..though there are threads around here with that question if you do a search

 

[theoruck]

I tried cutting the extra wire off on a floppy drive. It didnt work. So try it on a spare set first. IDE cables may be different due to the lack of a twist near one of the connectors.

 

[jere01]

Ok well I was preparing my cable to be rounded and was playing around with the middle connector and managed to rip the actual plastic connector right off the cable accidentally. Fortunatly this seems to not make a difference! I finished rounding my cable and plugged it back in and it worked fine.

*Phew*

 

[MikroMak]

I think I figured it out. On IDE cables it should be fine to cut it anywhere (just make sure you wrap the exposed end with electric tape or something just so it doesn't short out against anything)past the first connector. As for floppy cables I'm pretty sure that it will work as long as that twist still exists between the motherboard connector and the floppy connector. We've been theorizin over on the ard boards that you can take the connector off the 1st 3.5 connection and recreate the flip. Note all this is in theory even over at the ard place.