Ran out of IDE channel. Please help

N

newbie2005

New Member
Hi folks,

I'm a bit angry at Dell. The new Dimension 8400 computer I bought recently only has 1 primary IDE channel. A data cable is connected to 2 optical drives (DVD-ROM and DVD+/-RW). That leaves no connector (or channel) for my internal Iomega zip drive (250 MB).

Does this mean I need to purchase some sort of PCI card that contains the IDE connectors? I did a little search on the net, came up with this link to the product:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=419815

Could this be the solution to the problem?
 
if you mean the ide cables you just need to buy one they're around 5 bucks or less online. if you're talking about the ide slots on the mobo then you'll need to buy a pci ide addon card.
 
Zip drives use the same size as a floppy disk. You'll have to find a small ide with a primary and slave
 
As a side note... if the two opticals are on one cable, then there should be an extra slot on the other cable holding your hard drive... assuming you only have one hard drive.
 
newbie2005 said:
Hi folks, I'm a bit angry at Dell.
Click to expand...

NEVER BUY DELL! :P

Anyway, for your problem, you'll be needing an add-on IDE PCI card, the one which is in the link you posted up should do just fine.
 
The Astroman said:
NEVER BUY DELL! :P

Anyway, for your problem, you'll be needing an add-on IDE PCI card, the one which is in the link you posted up should do just fine.
Click to expand...

The product link I posted is an ATA/100 controller card to support 66MHz PCI motherboards. Will it slowdown my computer? My Dell Dimension 8400 desktop uses the 925X chipset, 800 MHZ FSB. There seems to be some imbalance in the speed, i.e., 66 MHZ vs 800 HMZ, right?
 
800MHz is your motherboard bus speed. I think 66MHz is the PCI interface speed. If so, it'll work fine on your motherboard.
 
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