EIDE

I was searching for a hard drive to buy for my computer, and I
happened to stumble over some rather confusing catagories on
Pricewatch.com.
The hard drives that come regularly with the computer are IDE hard
drives right?
So on pricewatch they list something called EIDE hard drives...
Is there a difference?
Is it the same thing?
And also, I'm not very skilled when it comes to hard drive types, what
are ATA hard drives?
I'm very confused.
-David

David wrote:

I was searching for a hard drive to buy for my computer, and I
happened to stumble over some rather confusing catagories on
Pricewatch.com.
The hard drives that come regularly with the computer are IDE hard
drives right?

Right.

So on pricewatch they list something called EIDE hard drives...
Is there a difference?
Is it the same thing?

Sometime in the distant past (in computer terms) IDE drives became EIDE drives. I don't recall, but it may have been when DMA first appeared. These days EIDE is not used and drives are again referred to simply as IDE.

And also, I'm not very skilled when it comes to hard drive types, what
are ATA hard drives?
I'm very confused.
-David

IDE is Integrated Drive Electronics and refers to the fact that the disk controller is integrated on the back of the hard drive, which was not true before the days of PCs. ATA (can't recall what this acronym stands for) is the protocol that most IDE drives use.
Most drives are ATA IDE drives. The biggest exception is SCSI, which is a different protocol than ATA. SCSI drives also have the controller integrated on the drive but are not referred to as IDE.

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Mike Walsh
West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

Thanks,
David

ATA stands for AT Attachment, which, as most pre-pentium users know,
has been the standard for IDE interace since IBM invented the AT
specification. IDE and EIDE interfaces seem to be intercompatible, that
is, an EIDE ribbon can connect IDE drives and an IDE ribbon will work
with EIDE drives. the difference between the 2 ribbons: 80 wires vs. 40
wires. i don't exactly know how, but 80 wires supposedly speeds
transfer. an EIDE hard drive will sometimes be called IDE just so
people wont get confused. other drive interface methods currently
available include Serial ATA and SCSI.