: I believe the following will work but I would like some confirmation
: first: the cable to connect an external 3.5" harddrive to my a1200
: would consist of a 44 pin connector attached to the ide header
: of the a1200, with a 40 wire ribbon cable ending with a 40 pin
: connector attached to the harddrive. The 40 wire ribbon cable would
: connect to pins 1-40 on the 44 pin connector, leaving pins 41-44
: unconnected. The harddrive will be powered externally. This
: makes sense to me but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking
: anything.
You got it. The problem is that there is a change in wire thickness.
Getting the thinner ribbon cable to work with was impossible for me.
I could only find the standard thickness, which is way too thick to stuff
into the small 44 pin IDE crimpon connector.
If you CAN find the right cable, then hand-split the end and stuff it one
wire at a time into the 40 pin connector.
This is what Redmond Cable did. It's not pretty, but I guess it works
when it is done right.
If you don't have a SCSI+ (I did so it didn't help me), the better way is
to get a small converter circuitboard that handles the change in spacing
on the board itself. This will let you use the wider spaced ribbon cable
throughout and is more stable. I've seen a couple people post that they
could get this little board for about $10. ICD no longer has it, and will
try to send you a kit at around $20 that has it inside, but you don't want
to waste your money.
This little thing is used by clones usually, to be able to hook up 2.5"
drives to 3.5" headers. So A1200 users would be using it backwards, but
it works.
By far the _#1_ problem with new A1200 users is the struggle to hook up
external 3.5" drives, and unless you can spare $70+ for an XDS case (which
is, no matter how you cut it, excessive for what you get), it is going to
be a struggle unless you know what you are doing beforehand and the parts
are available locally.
It's too bad that some people (who will remain nameless) would rather
flame us than express support, for this is by far the most common
problem-hardware thread on this newsgroup.