I have a 47 cm IDE cable, that came with my motherboard. The problem is that it aint long enough to stretch to both devices, CDRW and HD. can i get a longer IDE cable and does the longer the cable, reduce access speeds. Is that true, Thanks in advance, :-D Granto

No it doesnt affect performance what will affect your performance though is connecting the hard dirve to the cd/rw drive.. your hard drive will run at the cd/rw/ bus speed. Do you have another ide slot on your motherboard?

How many free slots do you have where your CD-ROM is installed, cause you could move the CD-ROM down a slot to get it closer to the drive

it won't affect the performance, if you have any free slots you should get a new IDE, if you don't don't waste money on a new cable try screwing th drive and th hdd closer to each other