Identifying IDE Cables

How do I identify ATA66, ATA100,ATA133 etc, please?
Cheers Rolf.

 

For IDE, there are either 40 or 80-conductor ribbon cables. Later model, high transfer rate drives require 80-conductor for peak performance.

 

To clarify, the only differences in ATA cables is the number of conductors (the number of wires). There are 40-wire and 80-wire variants. In the 80-wire vairants, the extra 40 wires are used to ground each individual pin, which makes it possible to transfer at a higher data rate because the electronics on the end can more reliabaly get a signal off the actual data transfer wire.

In order to get speeds higher than ATA-33 (ATA-66, 100, and 133) you must use an 80 conductor ATA cable. Hard drives will see benefits using 80 conductor cables, CD drives will not (the media is slower than the interface speed). Not sure about DVD drives.

 

Thanx Heaps for the help Guys.