I need a 40-pin IDE ribbon cable with at least 5 plugs, i.e., it can
connect 4 devices to the motherboard, similar to this 3-plug cable:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5836020723

OR

I need a 40-pin male-female connector/plug that can connect 2 ribbons
(the two sides will look like the first example here:
http://store.homeavcables.com/internal-connectors.html )

Thanks!

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Request for Question Clarification by hedgie-ga on 05 Dec 2005 02:05 PST

Did you try the  search term
+custom ribbon cables
?

companies like

http://www.nudata.com/cables/convertersribboncable/teflon_internal_ribbon.htm
http://www.sanbor.com/custom-cable-assembly.htm
http://www.custom-computer-cables.com/ribbon_cables.html

should have no problem building one to your spec

You're probably going to have a real hard time with that, as the IDE
specification specifies only two devices per controller hence all the
3 plug cables.

Just for my curiosity what motherboard/controller will allow you to
hook up four on a single controller, because I never seen that and am
genuinely intrigued.

To answer the question of the earlier comment: you are able to connect
many devices to a computer with SCSI. The only problem with it is,
that SCSI devices and controller cards are extremely expencive
compared to normal IDE devices.
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SCSI.html

There are a primary and a secondary IDE connector in your motherboard.
You can attach two devices per connector, so you need two cables to
attach four devices. Each device needs to have right jumper settings
when attached to IDE cable.
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/ref/jumper_settings.html
The another device in each cable must be set to be a master/single
device, and the additional drive has to be set as a slave. The master
in the primary IDE cable should be the hard drive that contains your
operating system. There are different variations of how jumper
settings are selected. Most hard drives have setting instructions
included in the label.

How does that answer my question?  I'm aware of the two devices per
controller limit and the master/slave relationship of IDE devices. 
That's kind of my point.  I'm interested to know why this person needs
a 5 connector cable.  That implies they have a controller capable of
handling 4 devices, which to my knowledge doesn't exist.

Sorry if I caused misunderstanding. I meant that you can have many
devices in one SCSI connector, and you can even take SCSI hard drives
off the system without shutting down. The rest of the comment was for
aceresearcher.

I think that I found what aceresearcher was looking for:
4 drive Ultra2/Ultra160/Ultra320 LVD "Twist and Flat" cable. This
cable has 6 male high densty 68-pin connectors (HD68) one for the
controller, four for your drives, and one for the terminator. 32"
total length, 5.5" spacing between drives and 15" between controller
and first drive connectors.
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/scsi_internal_cables.html
CAUTION: NOT A IDE CABLE, NOT COMPATIBLE WITH IDE DEVICES

Um...they clearly say they want a 40 pin IDE cable not a 68 pin high
density scsi cable.

Yes. I meant that you can mix up two things and ask for something that
doesn't exist because you have seen something that looks like it.