the outside
the inside
connecting an IDE cable to the drive
an IDE ribbon cable
IDE drive controller on motherboard
jumper settings
the Physical Computer
a Training Module of the
Assistive Technology Division
Mississippi Department of Rehabilitation Services
Hard Drives
Hard drives are the primary storage devices in the PC. Internal drives are typically where all files including the Operating System are located. There are also external hard drives that are used for backups, file archiving, and file transfers. The two main types of hard drives are IDE (or EIDE) drives and SCSI ) pronounced "scuzzy. The IDE drives are the more common of the two types. A typical motherboard has two IDE controllers that can have two devices per controller. The drives are designated as "master" and "slave" on each controller. SCSI drives are rare in PCs. They are predominately used in networking environments. They are generally expensive, fast and dependable.
the outside |
A typical internal hard drive |
the inside |
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The business end of a hard drive: The IDE ribbon cable connects to the pin connector. The 4 pin Molex power connector attaches on the right. In the middle are examples of jumpers used to establish master/slave status. | |
| The hard drive label provides information about storage capacity, cylinders, jumper connections, etc. | |
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connecting an IDE cable to the drive |
an IDE ribbon cable |
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IDE drive controller on motherboard |
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