Speeding Up IDE Boot-Up

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  Even when an A4000 is configured without one, the system will still look
  for an IDE hard drive on power-up or reset. To allow IDE drives time to
  spin up, there is a long search built into the 3.0 ROMs, and an even longer
  one in the 3.1 ROMs (about 30 seconds). A BattMem bit to disable the extra
  delay with 3.1 ROMs has been reported and finally confirmed, but it only
  enables or disables eight seconds of the wait, and defaults to off. With
  software, it is possible to remove the delay between resets, but not on
  power-up (Matthew Frost's "NoIDE" program is available from the disk/misc
  directory of Aminet).

  The only currently-known way to completely disable this delay is by
  building a small piece of hardware (the circuit is courtesy of Sean Riddle;
  the instructions are mine, so errors are entirely my fault). With this "IDE
  ignorer," the search for IDE drives is skipped altogether.

  Parts Required

  2 4.7K resistors
  1 40-pin crimp-on IDC connector
  1 male-to-male 40-pin header (see below)

  Procedure: The two resistors are connected between pin 39 and pin 3, and
  pin 39 and pin 5 (the effect is to tie IDE data bits 7 and 6 high). Rather
  than using a piece of whole 40-conductor ribbon cable, I stripped short
  pieces of individual conductors from one and used fine needle-nose pliers
  to press these wires into the contacts for pins 3, 5, and 39. Then the
  crimp-on cover was clipped on top of these.

  Since the relevant pins are at either end of the connector, I ran the
  resistors flat along the side of the connector, using heat-shrink tubing
  and tape to insulate the leads. The only 40-pin male-to-male header I had
  didn't have pins long enough to make contact with both connectors, so I
  just cut three pins off a wire-wrap socket and stuck them in the connectors
  at pin locations 3, 5, and 39. Physically, this seems to be strong enough
  to hold the two connectors together.

   _______________________________
  |-----------####----------------|  <--two 4.7K resistors on side
  |---------------####------------|     of 40-pin IDC connector
  \_______________________________/

   |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
   ===============================   <--40-pin male-to-male header
   |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
   _______________________________
  /                               \
  |                               |  <--A4000 IDE cable connector
  |_______________________________|