I had never used Cable Select (CS) until I bought a Dell Dimension 8200. The 40 gig WD hard drive is set for cable select, as are the other drives. All CS means is that the drive at the end of the cable is a slave to the drive attached to the plug closest to the MB cable plus.  The cables in the Dell appear to be standard cables.

>While I'm sure your two statements work for you, I find it hard to
>accept the first one as hard and fast "fact" that might apply to everyone.
>I'm not even sure you said that, or meant to. (Maybe I'm reading
>something into it that is not there...)
>
>Hard drives interact with the computer BIOSs in so many different ways
>in the multitude of combinations that are out there that the only thing I
>have learned is that one must follow general rules and the instructions
>of the manufacturers.
>For example, I have NEVER used "CS" on any machine I have ever
>owned, and have WD hard drives up to 100G. (My Maxtor's peek at 40G).
>I try to keep the HDs on the MB cables... Working directly on the
>MB BIOS (no controller card smoke and mirrors...)
>
>Having said all that, and never using CS myself, I have an additional
>question for "the list"...
>
>All the HDs I have ever bought came with a data cable. First (pins/wires)
>40/40 then the faster 40/80.
>I "though" I read there are special cables for CS. Maybe not in the old
>days, but now???  Are there?  I though it involved a cut (or missing) wire.
>
>Sorry to rain on "T."s parade, but it seemed like a good time to ask.
>
>                                   Rick Glazier
>
>From: "T. McCaffrey" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Two things I learned this summer with the Western Digital 80GB HD
>> is this:
>> If it is on an IDE by itself and is to be the boot-up device - the
>> jumper has to be set to "CS" (cable select). Setting this jumper to
>> "MA" (Master) will result in the WD Utilities disk telling you that
>> there is no valid WD HD installed!
>>
>> Secondly, FDISK (win 98 flavor) will not recognize an HD over
>> 64GB in size. (It will tell you it is 10GB)
>> Here is the fix for it:
>>
>> http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q263044&
>


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