MagicSpin Installation Guide
Enhanced IDE Interface
Enhanced IDE, also called EIDE, is the term that Western Digital uses to describe its advanced drives that incorporate the performance improvements defined in ATA-2, along with several other refined protocols. EIDE has become a widely accepted term in the industry. The Enhanced IDE interface adds several important speed improvements as well as ATAPI support required to use your CD-ROM drive. Below is a list of the important improvements that EIDE adds:
•ATA-2:EIDE includes all of the improvements that are part of ATA-2, including the higher-speed transfer modes
•ATAPI: EIDE includes support for non-hard-disk devices on the IDE/ATA channel.
•Dual IDE/ATA Host Adapters: The EIDE standard includes support for dual IDE/ATA host adapters, allowing four IDE/ATA/ATAPI devices to be used.