The Basics

Firstly, lets get the definitions out of the way. IDE standard for Integrated Drive Electronics. Newer IDE drives often go under the name of ATA (AT bus Attachment). Don't worry too much about what it means, all you need to know is how to use it on your Amiga.

IDE is basically a standard for connecting hard drives to your computer. It was invented by Western Digital and Compaq many years ago and is now the most common interface available. It was extended to include support for CDROMs and other removable drives with the ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) standard. The Amiga supports all of this. Depending on what Amiga you have, you may have an IDE interface already. The A1200 and A600 both have one, as does the A4000. Other models such as the A3000 and A4000T came with SCSI (a rival and superior but more expensive standard) instead.

Often IDE, ATA and ATAPI are used interchangeably. Don't worry, you can use them all on your Amiga. The only IDE related standard you can't use is ATA66, which I'll come to at the end of this document.

The Interfaces

The Amiga A1200 and A600 come with 44 pin IDE interfaces, the A4000 comes with a 40 pin one and you can buy IDE cards and adaptors for almost every Amiga ever made. The 44 pin interfaces are designed for 2.5" hard drives which are quite expensive. You can also only attach one hard drive to a 44 pin interface usually, where as a 40 pin one can take two devices in most cases. I say most cases because with some badly designed or older hardware you can only use one device per interface, but any drive made after 1997 should support two devices. 40 pin devices are usually either 3.5" (for hard drives) or 5.25" (for CD ROMs).

For A1200 and A600 users who want to connect more than a single hard drive there are special 40 pin interfaces available. Most have two 40 pin interfaces (so you can have four devices, two on each interface) and some have a 44 pin interface too so you can connect your old 44 pin hard drive too. In this case you can't use the first 40 pin interface for anything as it's diverted to the 44 pin one. These interfaces usually also provide some buffering to help prevent damage to your internal IDE port, even though the risk is small.

The difference between 44 pin and 40 pin cables is simple. 44 pin cables carry power to the drive connected to them, with 40 pin cables you need to supply power from another connection on the drive. If you have an A1200 or A600 that is still in the original case (and not in a tower) this can be a lot of fun, but usually you can't fit more than a single hard drive in there anyway.

One other important thing to note is that the internal A1200, A600 and A4000 IDE ports only support drives up to 8GB in size. Anything larger and you will only be able to use the first 8GB of space on the drive. Other controllers such as the Buddha may not have this limitation, as I don't have any IDE drives over 8GB here I can't test it so it would be best to check before buying a large drive unless you can live with only using 8GB of it.

Cables

IDE cables come in two forms. 44 pin cables are small, and usually very short. The normally have only two connections, one at each end. 40 pin cables are usually longer (30cm minimum) and have three connections, one at each end and one in the middle. The one in the middle is usually closer to one end than the other, the long end designed to go from the interface to the first drive and the shorter end from the first drive to the second drive. Both are always ribbon cables.

Normally IDE cables have a red strip down one side. This is to help you get them the write way around. Some of the better ones have little bumps on the connectors too which prevents you from putting them in the wrong way. One pitfall to look out for is the new ATA66 standard. These drives use a different cable to ordinary IDE drives and are not supported on the Amiga yet. They aren't that common because of the cost, but if buying a new hard drive make sure you get a standard IDE 40 pin one.

When routing the cable inside your computer be careful not to bend it too much. Folding it over on itself length-ways is normally okay as long as you don't press it too flat and hard. However, twisting it can lead to damage or a non-working IDE chain (the name for a cable and devices on it). Most are fairly tough but be on the look out for damage as it could affect the operation of your interface.

Master and Slave

Some drives are fussy about which they are or won't co-exist with other drives. One common example of the first instance is the IDE/ATAPI Zip Drive. All the ones that I have seen have failed to work well with most drives when they are set to master. Sometimes they work as master if there is no slave drive, but I usually try and pair them off as a slave drive with a master hard drive or CD ROM to be safe. The second instance usually only applies with old hard drives, most made since about 1997 should be fine.

Here are the two possible combinations:

IDE Software

If you have an A1200, A600 or A4000 it has software built in to handle the built in IDE port. The software actually calls the port the scsi.device, because SCSI is the standard used on the Amiga. Don't worry, it all works, just remember to look for scsi.device and not ide.device.

Generally, if you connect a hard drive to your internal IDE port or through a four way adapter, it will be accessible in HDToolBox. HDToolBox is supplied on a disk with your machine in some cases, otherwise you will need to get it from a friend. If you buy your drive from an Amiga dealer they will usually supply the disk, or you may have to ask for it. Anyway, once you have it simply double clicking on the HDToolBox icon will let you prep your hard drive and start using it immediately. A discussion of how to do this is beyond the scope of this document I'm afraid, either look elsewhere or ask a friend. The HDToolBox that comes with OS3.5 has a novice mode to help you out if you aren't sure what to do, as well as documentation on the CD.

For connecting CD ROMs you need a CD ROM filesystem. There are two main contenders on the Amiga, AmiCDFS and CacheCDFS. Both do more or less the same thing. AmiCDFS is free and available on Aminet or on magazine coverdisks. CacheCDFS comes with OS3.5 and the IDEFix, which I will get to. It's not free but is a little faster than AmiCDFS has more options to configure it. It also comes with a CD³² emulator so you can play CD³² games.

IDEFix '97 is a package that comes with mode four way buffered interfaces and IDE cards such as the Buddha. It claims to speed your IDE interfaces up and indeed is required for many interfaces to fully work. It comes with CacheCDFS too. Chances are if you need it you have got it with some hardware you bought anyway.

ATAPI, Mode 3, Mode 4, ATA33 and ATA66

For those interested, here is some info on these extensions to the IDE standard. ATAPI is designed to allow removable drives to be connected to an IDE interface. Electronically it's exactly the same as IDE, the only difference being the software required for it. The Amiga supports ATAPI devices and will usually recognise removable drives like Zip Drives and set them up as DF4: etc. CD ROMs require special CD ROM filesystem software, as described above.

Mode 3 and Mode 4 are extensions to the IDE standard that allow for more speed, among a few other things. The only Amiga hardware that currently supports these extensions is the Elbox Flyer (sometimes called the Power Flyer). This device is available in different versions for different machines, and cab make use of the extra speed. All drives supporting Mode 3 and Mode 4 will work as normal IDE drives (Mode 0) too, so are fully compatible with normal IDE controllers, you just won't get the extra speed.

One thing to note is that if you mix Mode 0 (normal IDE), Mode 3 and Mode 4 drives on the same cable the Mode 3 and 4 drives will normally be forced down to the lowest setting available. So, if you have a Mode 0 and a Mode 4 device, you have to use the Mode 4 device in Mode 0 in many cases too.