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Date:      Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:26:01 -0700 (PDT)
From:      Dan Strick <strick@covad.net>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Cc:        dan@ice.nodomain
Subject:   Re: ATA failure with 4.6.2 & 250GB drive?
Message-ID:  <200310150126.h9F1Q1BK063618@ice.nodomain>

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> FWIW, I have had _major_ problems (ie drive failure) when trying to use
> an 80 wire cable on a UDMA33 board with  an ATA66 drive - I would recommend
> never using 80 wire cables on controllers that don't support UDMA66 or
> better. The reverse, using 80 wire cables on UDMA66 (or better) controllers
> with ATA33 drives is ok, however, and I've done that successfully.

The only difference between 40 and 80 wire ATA cables are the extra 40
wires which are all connected to ground and pin 34 in the host connector
which is not connected to the conductor in an 80 wire cable.  The ANSI
ATA/ATAPI-5 standard says that "80-conductor cable assemblies may be used
in place of 40-conductor cable assemblies to improve signal quality ..."
(section 4.2.2.1).

Unless someone can suggest a specific mechanism for the drive failures,
I would expect that your correlation between drive failures and using
80 conductor cables with UDMA33 controllers was just coincidence.

Dan Strick
strick@covad.net



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