IDE40 till IDE44 adapter.

[JT64]

I bought a IDE40 to IDE44 harddrive adapter delivered today, problem is it is not plugged or marked so you can turn it both ways when connecting to laptop HDD.

On one side i can see it have possibility to attach jumpers as a HDD. But i am far from sure that the side they put jumpers on same side on every harddrive or do they?

The brand is LGH-IDE-K, any help appreciated so i do not blow my controller card or harddrive.

JT

[JT64]

Found a picture i go for it if not correct poor harddrive......
http://www.kabelpiraten.se/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=28&products_id=91

JT

[carlsson]

Look for an "1" or other marking on the board. It should line up with the red wire in your IDE cable. At least the 3.5" ones usually have a notch like the connector has so you should not be able to twist it the wrong way.

[patscc]

If you have a multimeter, the pin assignments might help:

Pins 2,19,22,24,26,30,40 are tied to ground, and often tied together on a ground bus.
Pin 32 is no connect, and should therefore float. Pin 20 is a key, and should therefore not even be there, but at least float.

So here's what you do:
Put your black lead on ground. Test each of the corner pins. You'll find two corner pins in the same row that are grounded. This is the evens row. (i.e. 2,3,...40)
So you know pins 2 and 40 are at the ends of this row. From each corner, count 6 pins towards the center( string with the corner pin ). If the 6th pin from the corner is grounded, it's pin 30, which means the pin you started at is pin 40, and you should be able
to figure it out from there.

This doesn't work on a cable unless the cable is actually connected to something.
Hope this helps.
patscc

[JT64]

Well i probably should tested with a voltmeter but i did not, the picture turned out to be correct. So the jumpers on the adapter should be on same side as the jumpers on HDD, but what says jumpers always on the same side?

Weak that they can not mark out pin 1 or 0, but it is equally bad on the HDD but it miss a pin so you can figure it out. They should block that pin on the female adapter so you can't go wrong.

JT

[lutiana]

the picture turned out to be correct

http://www.kabelpiraten.se/catalog/images/images_big/LGH-IDE-K_1.jpg

In my experience, plugging those in backwards does not hurt anything.

[patscc]

Supposedly the HP Kitty Hawk gets fried if you plug it in the wrong way. That's what I was told when I bought a couple, for obvious reasons I've never tried this. Can anyone else confirm this ?
patscc

[Raven]

I saw someone wipe an IDE hard drive by plugging it in upside-down.

On the other hand, I've done it to some drives with no ill effects except them not working.

I believe this depends on the manufacturer and luck of the draw.

However, I don't think there's any physical damage possible through this, only data loss, so if that isn't a problem plug away.

[barythrin]

I don't recall ever having any data-loss occur by folks I know plugging in a cable backwards, but I'd assume if any manufacturer decided to do something special and non-standard you could still suffer some potential loss.

Things have been keyed (there's a less polite term for the guard that friends and I use that rhymes with card-guard) for quite a while to prevent the ability to hook things upside down though so I can't say how many times I've ever experienced that problem.

Whenever a friend that didn't quite know what they were doing has plugged one in upside down the usual side effect I've seen is the status/read light always being on and it not being detected by the BIOS.

[Raven]

Back in the day, connectors weren't keyed, notably IDE connectors. Even using a keyed new cable, older drives that arent keyed, or sometimes even just have pins sticking out of the back of the drive for the connector with no indication whatsoever what is what or how to plug it in properly.

[cosam]

With all the combinations of cables and disks with their various keying systems, it's not surprising these things get plugged in upside down. The plastic tap/hole combination does a pretty poor job as the cable goes in almost as easily the wrong way round. And even if your drive is keyed with pin 20 missing, the older cables aren't and fit perfectly well both ways. The only sure-fire way is of course to line the red stripe up with pin 1, but that's not always clearly marked either...


Whenever a friend that didn't quite know what they were doing has plugged one in upside down the usual side effect I've seen is the status/read light always being on and it not being detected by the BIOS.
Yep, the LED being stuck on is a tell-tale sign. The pin for the LED, which is active low, is diagonally opposite a ground pin. Flip the cable, and the pin is permanently grounded and the LED comes on. I'm not sure if that's by design or just a lucky coincidence.

[JT64]

I don't recall ever having any data-loss occur by folks I know plugging in a cable backwards, but I'd assume if any manufacturer decided to do something special and non-standard you could still suffer some potential loss.

Things have been keyed (there's a less polite term for the guard that friends and I use that rhymes with card-guard) for quite a while to prevent the ability to hook things upside down though so I can't say how many times I've ever experienced that problem.

Whenever a friend that didn't quite know what they were doing has plugged one in upside down the usual side effect I've seen is the status/read light always being on and it not being detected by the BIOS.

Well i can see that would be the case for 40 pin connector but the 44 pin 2.5 connector transfer voltage on the pins.

JT

[patscc]

And there's also a sort-of spec that supplies +5V on pin 20 of the 40-pin IDE interface.
patscc

[Dr_V]

The correct way is with the LGH-IDE-K logo side up (towards the HDD lid, where the stickers are). Or to describe it another way the 4pin power molex should end up in the same position (relative to the drive) as it is on a 3.5" HDD.

[determined by testing on multiple drives]