what is the function of an Ide Cables ?

Question

what is the function of the Ide Cables that lies in the computer? here is a picture of what i am talking about/ please help http://www.more-shop.co.uk/images/IDE-cable.png

Answer 1

IDE cable connects motherboard to ATA devices such as hard disks and CD/DVD drives. (also called PATA)

Modern computer also have SATA connectors to connect new and bigger hard disks.

More information about ATA, PATA, SATA and IDE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment#History



EDIT: When I start to write this there was no answers here.

Answer 2

IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics. It was/ is a way of simplifying the electronics of the computer, shifting the burden from the interface to the drive itself. There are two IDE channels in most computers, and each can have two drives mounted, for a total of 4 drives. You can add more with a plug-in card. Most cards can handle 4 drives just like the motherboard. By adding more cards, I think the maximum number is 64, but you will run out of drive letters assignments. Most addon cards are really for an array which is something like drive "mirror" arrangements which is a redundancy thing in case of a hardware failure. You can mix and match any IDE device to any connector. Most have keyed connectors so they will fit only one into the drive or motherboard. If no key, then there is a stripe along one edge which indicates which side has pin 1.There are IDE interfaces in many devices, CDROM drives, tape drives, zip drives, stuff like that. The IDE interface simplifies what a software manufacturer has to do to handle different types of devices. There are two methods for connecting the drives, master/slave and cable-select. The cables are physically different. The master/slave will have 44 conductors and the connectors will all be identical in every respect. In this case, one IDE device has a jumper set to MASTER and the other set to SLAVE. The cable select version has 44 or 88 conductors and the connectors will be different colors. The ones I've seen have 2 black and 1 gray connector. Either black goes to the motherboard with the other black and gray going to the two devices which have a jumper set to the CS position instead of MASTER or SLAVE. From there, you need to configure the device type in the BIOS setup. Mostly this will be to select AUTO configuration, but it used to be you had to tell the BIOS things like number of heads, cylinders and sectors.

Answer 3

Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) is a standard interface for connecting storage devices such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers.





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Here is a link to see all the gory details. Good luck !



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Drive_Electronics

Answer 4

Usually to connect a hard drive to the controller on your computer so you can read and write data to/from the disk.



IDE = Integrated Device Electronics, it's one of many interface types for controlling hard drives and other types of data storage devices. Compare with SCSI, SATA, etc.



Check out Webopedia.com for more detail, or Wikipedia.com.



Good luck!

Answer 5

It is also used to connect a CD or DVD drive to your motherboard.