Talk:Parallel ATA/Archives/2019/January

CD drive pinout

Hello. I have different PATA cables here. This article only mentions the 40-pin type, and I have some of them, probably obtained on old HDDs. But all PATA CD drives I have here only have 39-pins on the rear connector, so their cables ommit the 20th pin on both ends. That is, you cannot connect this kind of cable on devices with 40-pins.

Shouldn't this be mentioned on the article also? Or there is another article for this variant of cable/pin-out? Appears to be widespread and relevant.--MisterSanderson (talk) 15:48, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

OK, I found the info on the article. I did "CTRL+F" for "39" and didn't find anything, but it's quickly explained on Parallel ATA#Parallel ATA interface:

"Pin 20

"In the ATA standard, pin 20 is defined as (mechanical) key and is not used. This socket on the female connector is often obstructed, requiring pin 20 to be omitted from the male cable or drive connector, making it impossible to plug it in the wrong way round; a male connector with pin 20 present cannot be used. However, some flash memory drives can use pin 20 as VCC_in to power the drive without requiring a special power cable; this feature can only be used if the equipment supports this use of pin 20."

I edited the text so to include the number "39". --MisterSanderson (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Floppy drive pinout

Hello. It does appears that this article doesn't covers correctly the floppy disk drive cables and connectors... All 3½" drives and cables I have here don't use the 40-pin standard; instead the cables are 34-pins wide. The pinout of the rear connectors on the drives have big differences in matter of pin layout...--MisterSanderson (talk) 16:49, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Why would an article on Parallel ATA discuss floppy disk drive cables and connectors? Tom94022 (talk) 20:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)