Cable Select vs. Master/slave settings

[Claude Jones]

On Sun August 7 2005 3:53 pm, Tony Nelson wrote:
> At 3:19 PM -0400 8/7/05, Gene Heskett wrote:
> >Nice idea Claude, but can you tell us how to tell the difference
> >between the cables so that we can properly identify them?
>
> Just google on "cable select" (with the quotes) and you'll find that a
> Cable Select cable has pin 28 connected to a ground wire at one device
> connector (master) and not connected at the other (slave); normally this is
> done by punching out a little bit of wire 28 (on a 40 wire cable) just past
> the middle connector, so you'll see a little hole in the cable.  You'd also
> find that, as normally a single device should be at the end of the cable
> (slave) and a single device should be master, so using a Cable Select cable
> with only one device is, umm, problematical.
>
> If one must use a Cable Select cable for only one device and it doesn't
> seem to work quite right at either position, I suppose one could just cut
> the cable after the middle connector, which would make it the end
> connector.  Cables are cheap.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html
In case you felt you needed to know more. Actually, the author contradicts my 
own experience, learned 'on the job', but, as he himself notes, he's 
describing what 'should work', and notes that this doesn't always happen. 
Master/slave jumpering will 'always' be recognized is one of those 'should 
work' issues. He confirms my own experience with widely differing cable 
standards that became particularly convoluted in the 40pin varieties. I have 
personally encountered situations where master/slave jumpering with a cs 
cable would not work, but cs jumpering would, though in theory, that should 
not have been the case. My practice is to buy the latest cables  in the cs 
variety. Of late, PC's have been generally shipping without cs cables, and 
jumpered m/s drives. So when dealing with new machines, I'm with the 
traditional standard, and when building up new boxes, I use cs. But, there 
are those troublesome machines that come in for service from the far flung 
reaches of the network, that were built up 2-5 yrs ago, and then we encounter 
all sorts of issues.
One thing for sure, when you start encountering weird drive access issues, or 
problems that defy normal analysis, it's good practice to look at the 
cable/jumpering in use early on in the diagnostic process. 
-- 
Claude Jones
Bluemont, VA, USA