More Drives?

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SirKenin

banned
PC eye said:
"A PATA controller is physically incapable of running more than two devices. Period. That's all she wrote. Your fantasy cables do not exist."

Then you explain that to the former USAF tech that sold me an IBM 386 desktop with the 200mb hard drive connected to the same cable as the two 5 1/4" floppy drives mounted in the two drive bays those many years back. The hard drive was at one end with the floppies at the other end with the 4th connector plugged into the board. I guess you never heard of "Y" cables often used on the old systems. :p !
Click to expand...

Maybe you can stop and think. Just for a second. It's not that hard. Floppy drives are not PATA devices. The configuration you're trying to sell to us has one PATA device and two floppies. Like I said, you can't connect more than two PATA devices on a channel.
 
ceewi1

ceewi1

VIP Member
IDE Cables with four connectors (three HDD, plus the mobo connector), do exist. I have one sitting here in front of me. The cannot, however, allow your system to have more than two drives plugged on the same channel, and are intended only to allow the user a choice of where they'd like to plug the connector in. This allows the user to have the first drive plugged in either 1/3 or 2/3 down the length of the cable, which is invaluable for full towers which often have a significant space between different drive bays.

There is no cable that will allow you to install another drive onto the same channel. An IDE controller card is the best option.
 
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PC eye

banned
I think some of the confusion here is about when the IBM flat top model saw three drives on one cable. Try some 20yrs. ago on an early model 386. At that time you didn't anything like the present ide controller with the two drive limit. This was tried out with three drives there with the host 200mb, a second 20mb, and a 50mb drive thrown in there.

The 200mb came with the used system which saw the other two tried out on a friend's insistence when he had collected some old hardware at the time. His uncle had been a ham operator with some early hardwares upgraded later to see hin get handed the used drives. WIN 3.1 still saw them as drive A and drive B the way the 5 1/4's were setup. shortly after reinstalling the two floppy drives the 386 was swapped in for the AST 486 model. That one saw the ide 3x40 cable there.

Despite the HD and two 5 1/4"s on one cable I just happened to spot a second 4x40 that was never connected stuffed in the case. I grabbed that one since it wasn't doing anything there until it proved useless when going inside the AST to install a WD 1.4gb to replace the 500mb it came with. So much for that cable! :( When the AST quit a newer custom case saw the 1.4gb installed until paying $200 for a WD 13gb. Would you believe the 1.4gb drive and the 13gb models are still in use now. :)
 
S

SirKenin

banned
IBM 386s did not have IDE controllers in them. All the other 386s on the market had IDE interfaces, but they did not support three devices per channel. Also, there is no such thing as a "flattop". What were you referring to exactly? What was the model number? From the sounds of it, you are talking about a PS/2 Model 70 or 80 (unless you had the 386SX processor which was a Model 55SX). The next step was a later Model 70 486. None of them had an IDE controller, they had an ESDI or SCSI controller and microchannel tech.

This article might help clear the confusion:

Most motherboards by defualt can support up to four IDE devices in a single PC. The motherboard offers a primary and secondary IDE channel. Each channel can support one IDE cable with two devices running off the same cable. One of the devices is configured to act as the master and the other as the slave. These configuartions are configured using either jumpers or DIP switches.

Primary channel, master device
Primary channel, slave device
Secondary channel, master device
Secondary channel, slave device
Most motherboards that support serial ATA have two SATA connectors. A single serial cable only supports one device. In a standard setup you can have up to four PATA and two SATA devices.
Click to expand...

http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/IDE-Interface.php

Incidentally, the maximum length of the cable is 18" or you get signal loss.
 
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PC eye

banned
The one used here was a "flat top" in the sense of not being a mid tower AT style case. The old style cases even the AST 486 later used would often see the monitor sitting on top. The model at the link here gives you a look at a newer model 386 with a 3 1/2" floppy on the left while the 386 used here had a dark colored case with two 5 1/4" floppy drives on the right side. Plus that case was wider then the one seen at http://members.aol.com/suprdave/classiccmp/2121a82.htm

The case here looks quite a bit closer in appearance although the case had a dark or black cover and dark colored face plate. Plus it was a custom build at the time for business that had been recently traded in.



It certainly didn't look as nice and clean as this one for sure.
 
S

SirKenin

banned
I have a couple of questions for you. What version of DOS or OS/2 were you using? And do you happen to remember the model of the 200MB HDD? Did you use any disk tools for any of your drives?

And I know what a desktop PC is, thanks.
 
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
PC eye said:
"
Then you explain that to the former USAF tech that sold me an IBM 386 desktop with the 200mb hard drive connected to the same cable as the two 5 1/4" floppy drives mounted in the two drive bays those many years back. The hard drive was at one end with the floppies at the other end with the 4th connector plugged into the board. I guess you never heard of "Y" cables often used on the old systems. :p !
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I am talking about IDE controlers your talking about Integrated IBM SCSI controller
 
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PC eye

banned
StrangleHold said:
I am talking about IDE controlers your talking about Integrated IBM SCSI controller
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There was no SCSI controller on the IBM that was used here. The picture above although having the same size and shaped case is a newer model. All three drives were connected to the board by one cable. When a friend showed up one day with some real old drives those were tried out while the 200mb was still connected. Out of a dozen or so two were still good and were run together with the 200mb drive that came with the system. The three drives actually worked together there.

The 200mb drive probably was either an IBM or WD at the time. The smaller drives tested that worked to no surprise now were WD. Others were actually covered with rust due to way the machanic had stored them in a plastic bucket! :eek: ! I was surprised to see any work at all.
 
S

SirKenin

banned
You still didn't answer my questions PC Eye. I'm not saying they're SCSI or anything, but please do answer. I would like to get an idea of what you had.
 
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PC eye

banned
First of all they were far from the rectangular shaped ide controlled hard drives you are accustomed to seeing. They were flat on the bottom while being more round in shape. You're talking some old technology here where they were no more involved then as were the 5 1/4" floppy drives. There were no jumpers to assign a drive as master or slave.

The drives tried out were even older then the 200mb drive there. I can inquire to see if that person still has them lying around somewhere to see if I can get some information on them. But the WD model tried was about a 50mb hard drive that still worked. Plus the connectors on that type of cable was just about twice as large as the ide 40 and ide 80 wire cables seen since then. In those old systems the HDs were so small they stacked them just like you would see in a present day server case.

SCSI introduced faster read times when accessing data stored on the then external drives. That was considered the "Cadillac" of drive controllers those years back. But that was definitely not seen there. The 200mb drive saw Dos and WIN 3.1 in those days. The system was only here for about six months when swapped in at a new business that dealt with used systems and recycled software. At the time I wasn't taking notes on model numbers and makes of drives but getting familiar with the operating systems there then seeing 95 on the AST 486 case. That case also had the two 5 1/4" bays on the right front but tan in color. The 500mb in that was a WD along with 1.4gb used to replace it by installing that in one bay with a 2x cd rom in the other. Now tallk about slow access times trying to install software. :p
 
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SirKenin

banned
Well, first of all DOS 4.1 didn't support 200 MB HDDs. It was limited to a 32MB partition. That's the DOS that was around at that time. I'd love to know what fandangling you did to get that 200MB drive working. lol :D

The 40 pin interface has been a standard since it was released. It has never changed. You did not have an IDE controller in that computer, or if you did you weren't using it.

There was no cable in existence at that time much wider than a 40 pin. The only other cables were 50 pin SCSI cables, which were marginally wider, ESDI which was 34 pin, and RLL/MFM cables that were two cable sets.

IDE drives have ALWAYS had jumpers for M/S and they have always had to be set in the BIOS. SCSI drives do not have jumpers for M/S, rather jumpers for Device ID, Termination Activate, Disable Parity, etc. They are not set in the BIOS, but rather by the SCSI controller. I know, I've screwed around with them plenty.

You had SCSI man, sorry.
 
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PC eye

banned
First of all the cable was plugged directly into the board itself. And I never specified which version of MS Dos I was using at the time. In fact the one thing still remaining now from all of that is the orginal 6.22 and 3.1 floppies! Surprisely when getting the AST I didn't even run the 95 setup.exe file from the run line in 3.1. I simply booted from a floppy with cd rom support enabled and manually started the setup that way. That was a 95 upgrade disk there.
 
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SirKenin

banned
Some of them had SCSI controllers built right into them. You can still buy motherboards like that to this day (I have a dual processor server board made by Iwill like that in my file server), so that means nothing. Trust me, it was SCSI.

I don't care about your 95 upgrade disk and your AST, ok? That's not what we're talking about here and has absolutely bugger all to do with it. Fair enough? :)
 
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PC eye

banned
ahajv4life said:
I've seen some IDE cables that could handle 3, they were home-made, but they worked all the same :)
Click to expand...

I'd like to know how they managed that one on systems since that IBM 386 with the 4 old style heavier connectors that could never fit on anything newer. Another thing to mention here was that the cables used on the AST 486 could no longer be used on any newer boards due to the change in cables from that point on. The current ide cables have been in steady use for the last 7-8 years at least.
 
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PC eye

banned
Ribbon cable tutorial
What kind of ribbon cable do I need?
In determining which ribbon cable you need, you must first identify what type of device you are attempting to hook up. Most internal devices that require ribbon cables fall into two different categories: IDE or SCSI. In the past, it was very simple to determine the difference between IDE and SCSI cables because IDE cables had 40 conductors or less, and SCSI cables had 50 conductors or more. With the introduction of IDE Ultra DMA ATA-66 hard drives, this has changed.
IDE:
Now, IDE cables still use a 40 pin IDC style connector, but they have two different counts on the amount of conductors they use.
IDE Ultra DMA 33 or lessUse 40 pin, 40 conductor cableIDE Ultra DMA 66/100/133Use 40 pin, 80 conductor cable
The 80 pin cable puts a ground pin between each control and data signal, thus improving signal reliability. Since ATA-133 cables are not overly expensive, I would always recommend buying the 80 conductor cable. You never know when you may need it during an upgrade, and it may save you a trip to the store. http://www.cablemakers.com/ribbon.htm​
 
StrangleHold

StrangleHold

Moderator
Staff member
PC eye said:
Ribbon cable tutorial

What kind of ribbon cable do I need?
In determining which ribbon cable you need, you must first identify what type of device you are attempting to hook up. Most internal devices that require ribbon cables fall into two different categories: IDE or SCSI. In the past, it was very simple to determine the difference between IDE and SCSI cables because IDE cables had 40 conductors or less, and SCSI cables had 50 conductors or more. With the introduction of IDE Ultra DMA ATA-66 hard drives, this has changed.
IDE:
Now, IDE cables still use a 40 pin IDC style connector, but they have two different counts on the amount of conductors they use.
IDE Ultra DMA 33 or lessUse 40 pin, 40 conductor cableIDE Ultra DMA 66/100/133Use 40 pin, 80 conductor cable

The 80 pin cable puts a ground pin between each control and data signal, thus improving signal reliability. Since ATA-133 cables are not overly expensive, I would always recommend buying the 80 conductor cable. You never know when you may need it during an upgrade, and it may save you a trip to the store. http://www.cablemakers.com/ribbon.htm​
Click to expand...

It still has 40 (PINS) it has 80 (WIRES)!!
 
P

PC eye

banned
StrangleHold said:
It still has 40 (PINS) it has 80 (WIRES)!!
Click to expand...

What you rejects still haven't figured out yet was where did I mention how many pins were on the connector? :rolleyes: What I DID say was that there was a change made in the cables themselves. The old ide cables were 40pin 40wire not 40pin 80wire. If you took one of the cables out of the AST and tried running them on any newer then ATA33/66 you wouldn't see a system loading any OS from a hard drive or cd/dvd drive either.(well you could load a linux distro with a Grub or Lilo floppy. ssshhhh.... they can't comprehend that.)
 
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