I bought an USB / SATA / IDE combined adapter. The adapter can connect SATA and IDE hard drives through USB. Connecting SATA hard drives is not a problem. I have no clue how to place the jumper settings on the IDE hard drives: slave, master or cable select?
Furthermore, the IDE connector on the USB/IDE converter doesn't fit for all my IDE hard drives: on one of the drives 2 pins remains free on the IDE hard drive, they have no corresponding holes on the adapter connector part. Interestingly, in this case I can connect the hard disk to the adapter in two ways: namely, when the two free pins are on the right side of the adapter connector and when they are on the left side. I wonder which is the correct way to connect?
41 Answer
I have no clue how to place the jumper settings on the IDE hard drives: slave, master or cable select?
With only a single drive connected, I don't think it matters at all (the purpose of these jumpers is when you have two IDE devices on the same cable), but either "Master" or "Cable Select" is typical in this situation.
(From what I've read, the M/S setting actually has no effect on disk performance, it only serves the same function as e.g. the SCSI ID on parallel-SCSI disks, allowing commands to target either device 0 or device 1.)
this case I can connect the hard disk to the adapter in two ways: namely, when the two free pins are on the right side of the adapter connector and when they are on the left side. I wonder which is the correct way to connect?
The standard 40-pin IDE connection always has one "key" pin: there's no pin #20 on the disk, and there's no hole for pin #20 on the connector. So there's only one position where the connector physically fits the disk.
(That is, assuming the adapter isn't the extremely cheap kind where the manufacturer didn't block out the hole for pin #20...)
If you have a desktop 3.5" IDE HDD with more pins than that – I have no idea; haven't seen that one yet. But assuming it's standard IDE + proprietary extra stuff, then it should still have the "key pin" in the same position, and the connector should only fit one way.
Laptop 2.5" IDE HDDs do indeed use a 44-pin connector which integrates both IDE and power (see pinout); if the extra 4 pins remain unconnected the disk would have no power. But if I remember correctly, this connector is physically smaller as well (higher density), so a 40-pin adapter made for 3.5" disks again shouldn't even fit a 2.5" disk, unless you bend a whole lot of pins.
And even if it does fit, the key pin #20 would only allow the connection at the correct position (unless the adapter doesn't have the #20 correctly blocked out, or unless pin 19 got bent too).
(The cheap Gembird IDE-to-USB adapter that I recently bought has two IDE connectors: 40-pin on one side for desktop 3.5" disks; 44-pin on the other side for laptop 2.5" disks.)
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