[lug] low profile, long IDE cables?

D. Stimits stimits at comcast.net
Sat Sep 3 16:30:20 MDT 2005


Lee Woodworth wrote:
> D. Stimits wrote:
> 
>> Jeffrey Siegal wrote:
>>
>>> On Sep 1, 2005, at 17:42 , D. Stimits wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm curious if anyone knows of a place to purchase longer than  
>>>> normal IDE cables, which are also low profile? The box I have to  
>>>> work with has small metal slots for the cable to route through. In  
>>>> the past the cables I've found locally which are long enough were  
>>>> either too high profile to get through the slots, or else were  
>>>> downright buggy. This is parallel IDE on UDMA66 (yeah I know,  
>>>> ancient). The brands sold in the chain stores like CompUSA were all  
>>>> failures.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> You might consider an IDE to SATA adapter.  Put it near the  
>>> motherboard and then route the SATA cable to the drive.
>>
>>
>>
>> Hmm. This might be an option but it sounds a bit expensive. Of course 
>> it might beat not using that IDE cdrom drive at all.
> 
> 
> JB Saunders had some IDE-SATA converters at one time. Don't remember
> the price, around $50 I think.

That's just too much. I think I'd use a drill first and put some holes 
in the inside of the case...trouble is I'd first have to remove the 
motherboard and a bunch of stuff to avoid metal shavings contaminating it.

> If you don't need to boot from the CD, you could try converting it to
> an external drive using a USB case, about $50 @ compusa.

Nope, don't need to boot from it, it's a cd burner. Right now the cable 
can reach either my temp IDE hard drive (which I'm experimenting with), 
or the CD burner...but I can't get both at once due to cable routing 
issues. Unfortunately, I'd like to be able to use the burner while 
working on the temp drive stuff as a way of saving data.

D. Stimits, stimits AT comcast DOT net



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