All IDE devices/cables are parallel ata. The Blue/gray/black cables you have should be the ATA 66/100 rated cables with 80 conductors/wires. The older style only had 40 but was only good up to ATA 33. Black (far end of cable) is master and gray (middle connector) is slave. You are right about Blue being for the host controller.
Pin 20 should be the one that is plugged on your cables. You might be able to remove it with a pick if it isn't actually molded that way. Newer drives and motherboards have that pin removed and the cables are keyed as such. It was also like that on early compaqs, dells, etc. I remember having lots of pulled cables from those kind of systems and not being able to use them on whitebox motherboards or drives because they weren't keyed. The Tier1's seemed to like have their cables keyed, I guess they couldn't put stuff on backwards at the factory that way. -Tharin Olsen DHSinclair <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Am I correct: Old EIDE: Black connector (m/b) - Black connector (master) - Black connector (slave) Pata EIDE: Blue connector (m/b) - Gray connector (master) - Black connector (slave) Still wondering about the "plugged" pin in the m/b connector......... Have lots of these. Can not use them. My m/b has a pin where it should not be. Best, Duncan
