Table of Contents
Advertisement
10. After finishing the work, turn off the computer, set the jumper on the disk to the
master position if you want to make the disk bootable (or leave it in slave position
if the disk is installed as additional data storage).
B.1.2
Motherboard sockets, IDE cable, power cable
There are two slots on the motherboard to which the hard disks can be connected:
primary IDE and secondary IDE.
Hard disks with an IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) interface are connected to the
motherboard via a 40- or 80-thread flat marked cable: one of the threads of the
cable is red.
Two IDE hard disks can be connected to each of the sockets, i.e. there can be up to
4 hard disks of this type installed in the PC. (There are three plugs on each IDE
cable: 2 for hard disks and 1 for the motherboard socket.)
As noted, IDE cable plugs are usually designed so that there is only one way to
connect them to the sockets. Usually, one of the pinholes is filled on the cable plug,
and one of the pins facing the filled hole is removed from the motherboard socket,
so it becomes impossible to plug the cable in the wrong way.
In other cases, there is a jut on the plug on the cable, and an indentation in the
socket of the hard disk and of the motherboard. This also ensures that there only
one way to connect the hard disk and the motherboard.
In the past, this design of plug did not exist, so there was an empirical rule:
cable is connected to the hard disk socket so that the marked thread is the closest
to the power cable
similar rule was used for connecting cables with the motherboard.
Incorrect connection of the cable with either the hard disk or the motherboard does
not necessarily damage the electronics of the disk or the motherboard. The hard
disk is simply not detected or initialized by BIOS.
There are some models of hard disks, especially the older ones, for which incorrect
connection damaged the electronics of the drive.
We will not describe all the types of hard disks. Currently the most widespread are those with
IDE or SCSI interfaces. Unlike IDE hard disks, there can be from six to 14 SCSI hard disks
installed in your PC. However, you need a special SCSI controller (called a host adapter) to
connect them. SCSI hard disks are not usually used in personal computers (workstations), but
are found mostly in servers.
Aside from an IDE cable, a 4-thread power cable must be connected to the hard
disks. There is only one way to plug in this cable.
Copyright © Acronis, Inc., 2000–2004
, i.e. the marked thread connected to pin #1 of the socket. A
Appendix B Hard disks and BIOS setup
the IDE
69
Advertisement
Table of Contents
