80 pin udma cable ?

quick question guys, I had a cust ask me why an udma cable would not work if connected backwards. He was connecting the blue connector to the hdd and the black connector to the MB. He said that it only worked if you connect the blue connector to the mb and the black connector to the hdd. I know this is the way to go but my question is, aren't both sides of a standard UDMA cable crimped the same. I mean the blue connector and the black connectors are same right. the only diff. is the color right ?

I am confused on this. are these connectors in fact different ? Are the connectors on a regular IDE cable different than the ones on the UDMA cable? I know that there are grounding wires on a UDMA cable that are not on a standard IDE.

Sorry , I thought it was going to be a quickie

I can't tell you eactly which pin--but one pin is open in the cable. Putting the cable on backwards would work if each strand was straight through and complete. I had some cables that actually had one strand cut--there was a physical hole in the cable.

The exact no. of the wire which is notched or physically cut is no 34 (Thirtyfour) and the MOBO has a capacitor to detect the presence of such a 80 pin cable (with a notch), so that UDMA/66 or UDMA/100 gets enabled.

More info on the FAQ pages of Seagate. It is specific on which colored connector goes where, Sorry I don't know the reason.

I could post this because my UDMA disk never was with UDMA transfer rates, till, Seagate site told me the minimum requirements to enable UDMA even if you purchase a supposedly UDMA disk. Do visit and let me know through forum if helped solve your problem.