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Ide Gender Changer?

U

upriverpaddler

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 11, 2004
Messages
1,701
I want to hook up an external drive without going the USB route. I've googled but cant seem to find IDE gender changers or plug mounts. Anybody got any ideas?
 
firewire.

why would you want an IDE cable coming out of your pc anyway?
honestly, if you really want that, get a long IDE cable, and take out one of the placeholders on the pci slots, and run it through there. then you have the problem of power..

its an overall much better idea just to get a usb/firewire enclosure for a drive.
 
Plus, if I'm not mistaken, the spec limits an 80-wire IDE cable to 18" (though I've seen a 24" cable before). A foot and a half isn't very long for an external drive. I agree, firewire or USB is your best bet.
 
This will be for a portable microATX desktop w/ an optional optical drive. The socket 370 motherboard does not have USB2.0 or firewire. So I thought a round IDE cable sleeved w/ power from the PS would be good. I would have to also carry around a power brick for the external drive if I went the USB/firewire route.
 
why dont you just mount it in the pc if its only going to be in this one computer?

you cant hot swap with an IDE drive... theres really no point to running it outside the case..
 
OKANG said:
Plus, if I'm not mistaken, the spec limits an 80-wire IDE cable to 18" (though I've seen a 24" cable before). A foot and a half isn't very long for an external drive. I agree, firewire or USB is your best bet.
Click to expand...


You can get 36" cables too.
 
TheGamerZ said:
You can get 36" cables too.
Click to expand...
True, since it's for an optical drive you can. The spec for regular 40-wire cables is different than that for 80-wire cables.
 
I just bought a socket 370 flexATX mobo w/ NO ps2 ports and 2 usb ports. I want to put this in a custom box for a childs quasi HTPC / gaming machine that will be highly portable with a minumun amount of extra cabling to have to deal with. I dont want to buy another USB adapter when IDE channels will be sitting idle.

I was thinking I would take an old printer port and carve the insides out. Then pack it full of epoxy putty, Very carefully drill out the layout, then insert some copper pins long enough to stick out both sides. The power from inside the case will be easy to adapt and sleeve w/ the rounded 18" IDE cable i already have. Any ideas or improvements?

Please dont make me use USB!!
 
i didnt even know that motherboards existed without ps/2 ports :confused: (well, modern ones anyway, im not talking about old AT boards)

if thats what you wanna do man, then do it! have fun with the moddin :)

although for a really small/cool pc, id jump on the new p-m boards that are coming out.. the p-m's can be passivly cooled, and overclock like a mother... but if its for a kids pc.. then probably too expensive ;)
 
IDE was not made to go outside the box. It has a spec of 18inches although, they do make longer lengths for optical drives. Longest I've seen is 24 and 36inches. The longer you get the greater the chance of losing data. So if you really want to do this you run the risk of losing/corrupting data. That being said, if you really want to mount an optical drive with IDE. I would pick up an external enclosure and discard the firewire/usb2 card. Next, Buy this: http://svc.com/ext-idemolex-17.html
That solves the power and IDE problem. than you can use a rounded IDE cable and a sleeved power cable. You can even sleeve the two together into one long cable to attach. Try to keep the cable as short as possible. Feel free to mod that as you want and post a pic when you're done. Lots of other neat stuff on SVC.

I saw those socket 370 flex mobos on ebay. I was thinking of turning one into an htpc comp. USB remote or keyboard running some small linux distro on a small compactflash card.
 
upriverpaddler said:
I just bought a socket 370 flexATX mobo w/ NO ps2 ports and 2 usb ports. I want to put this in a custom box for a childs quasi HTPC / gaming machine that will be highly portable with a minumun amount of extra cabling to have to deal with. I dont want to buy another USB adapter when IDE channels will be sitting idle.

I was thinking I would take an old printer port and carve the insides out. Then pack it full of epoxy putty, Very carefully drill out the layout, then insert some copper pins long enough to stick out both sides. The power from inside the case will be easy to adapt and sleeve w/ the rounded 18" IDE cable i already have. Any ideas or improvements?

Please dont make me use USB!!
Click to expand...
I really don't think that'd work very well. It'd be better to just run a rounded cable out of the computer to the optical drive. Any "homemade" break in the cable isn't going to be very reliable, if it works at all. If you're set on going that route, let us know how it turns out.

A USB adapter could be used along with power from the computer's PSU. Then you wouldn't have any "extra cabling". You'd just have a USB cable in place of an IDE cable.
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=12-156-001&depa=0
(just ditch the power brick)
 
Whatsisname said:
some controllers you can. :eek:
Click to expand...
:eek: is right...

I wouldn't use the existing 40-pin header for hot-swap, though. Grounding should be established prior to connection of the other pins.
 
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