Quote Originally Posted by davewanna View Post
On closer inspection, the cable I was using originally, has more conductors in it than pins on the plug. I pulled the plug apart, and there is a big copper bus-bar that connects certain pins to each other, and also I assume to ground. Must give some kind of shielding effect.
Info you: Older IDE cables had 40 pins, newer ones have 80 pins, 40 normal + 40 grounds/shields, for use with the higher DMA speeds and transfer rates in the newer ATA spec's.