Dunno if this'll be useful, but looking at what can be seen of the PCB traces, it looks like it's possible to make a few guesses. The 44 pin connector looks to have Ground and Power (based on the trace going via the capacitors) that line up with the 44 pin ATA pinout. There are also about 7 connections between the connectors that we can see all of (pins 5, 10, 11, 30, 34, 35, 36 on the 50 pin connector), and we can also see the power and ground connections on the 50 pin.

Putting that together, it looks like the 50 pin connector might have the same layout as the 44 pin connector, but with a couple of extra rows of ground or signal pins.

I wrote out a table, basing the 44pin connector on https://old.pinouts.ru/HD/Ata44Internal_pinout.shtml, and filling in what can be seen of the 50 pin (at first I marked the thicker traces as power, but now think I'm wrong about that):

1          44pin                   50 pin          
2                                                  
3                              GND  1 26           
4     /RST 1  2 GND                 2 27 GND       
5     DD7  3  4 DD8                 3 28     (pwr?)
6     DD6  5  6 DD9                 4 29           
7 5<- DD5  7  8 DD10 ->30      DD5  5 30 DD10      
8     DD4  9 10 DD11                6 31           
9                              GND  7 32 GND       
10     DD3 11 12 DD12                8 33     (pwr?)
11     DD2 13 14 DD13 ->34           9 34 DD13      
1210<- DD1 15 16 DD14 ->35      DD1 10 35 DD14      
1311<- DD0 17 18 DD15 ->36 pwr? DD0 11 36 DD15      
14     GND 19 20 KEY            GND 12 37           
15     DRQ 21 22 GND                13 38 GND       
16     IOW 23 24 GND                14 39 GND       
17     IOR 25 26 GND                15 40 GND       
18     RDY 27 28 CSL                16 41           
19     DAK 29 30 GND                17 42 GND       
20     IRQ 31 32 C16                18 43           
21     DA1 33 34 PDG                19 44           
22     DA0 35 36 DA2                20 45           
23                              GND 21 46 GND       
24     CS0 37 38 CS1                22 47           
25     ACT 39 40 GND                23 48 GND       
26     +V  41 42 +V             +V  24 49 +V        (bit of a guess around here)
27     GND 43 44 TYP            GND 25 50        (couldn't make out the tracks clearly)

Doesn't really help finding an adapter...

if the pins line up like snufkin guesses then it would be easy enough to modify the 50pin cable I posted earlier and use any 44pin to SATA/msata/SD/CF/... adapter

.. and it plugged in and booted off it, and I've been poking around what was on there because the 1580 has been dead for a while 🙁 just found a service manual though so might see if it can be revived... or might look into getting another motherboard

Interesting. and very impressive..!

Oh and thanks for the link weedeewee.

I can't get this off my mind..

I guess it would be possible for me to test the power and ground pins with a multimeter? Or do I risk damaging the board if I shorten something out? Maybe I would be able to fit some Dupont cables in there just to be safe when testing but then I risk bending the pins. (I am really an amateur on this.)

on second look... is the pitch of the pins 2mm? You could easily verify this, it should be 2mm both horizontally as well as vertically, if it isn't, the cable I proposed won't work.

Joakim wrote on 2021-05-26, 21:37:

I guess it would be possible for me to test the power and ground pins with a multimeter? Or do I risk damaging the board if I shorten something out? Maybe I would be able to fit some Dupont cables in there just to be safe when testing but then I risk bending the pins. (I am really an amateur on this.)

Should be able to test ground with the computer off. Stick one probe on some exposed bit of metal (shields of serial/parallel ports are normally handy) and measure the resistance to anything that should be ground, and it should measure pretty close to 0 (compare any reading with what the meter says if you hold the probes on each other). You can also check if there's a short between 24 and 49 of the 50 pin (where I'm guessing +5V is) to see if they're connected to each other. You can also check that there is some resistance between +5 and Ground. To measure voltage then it's a good idea to practice with power off to check how best to get a probe on to a pin. What might be power pins are right next to ground pins, and you really don't want to short those together. It might just blow a fuse somewhere, but that's still worry and hassle.

It still might be the 1.8" IDE type, I was seeing a pic of a 1.8" IDE to Compact flash adapter and that was "spaghetti wired" like a lot of crossovers and very few 1:1.. so closer to 1:1 on a 1.8" IDE expected.

My idea was that if I manage to check the grounds maybe we can confirm if snufkin is correct in his guesses. I'll do it when I'm off work (and family)in 10 hours 😀

Weedeewee is pitch the distance between pins? The total width of the set of pins is ca 32 mm and there are 20 pins in width. So ca 1.5 mm between pins?

So I don't really know what is up and down in your schematic Snufkin. I measured as in my picture I took, the first pin is upper left corner. Second pin is below that etc. It might upside down, I dont know.

I had a hard time measuring this. It was very tricky to see and use two hands... and trying to note the result.. lost count about 20 times, so then I ended up recording my voice... Some pins were hard to measure because they are shorter and my multimeter is a little thick.

5, 9, 17, 21, 25, 37, 47 (27 maybe)
2, 10, 12, 28, 38, 50

does it make any sense at all..? 😁

Joakim wrote on 2021-05-27, 19:44:

Weedeewee is pitch the distance between pins? The total width of the set of pins is ca 32 mm and there are 20 pins in width. So ca 1.5 mm between pins?

yes, so the cable I suggested won't work since it has a 2mm pitch 🙁

So I don't really know what is up and down in your schematic Snufkin. I measured as in my picture I took, the first pin is upper […]
Show full quote

So I don't really know what is up and down in your schematic Snufkin. I measured as in my picture I took, the first pin is upper left corner. Second pin is below that etc. It might upside down, I dont know.

I had a hard time measuring this. It was very tricky to see and use two hands... and trying to note the result.. lost count about 20 times, so then I ended up recording my voice... Some pins were hard to measure because they are shorter and my multimeter is a little thick.

5, 9, 17, 21, 25, 37, 47 (27 maybe)
2, 10, 12, 28, 38, 50

does it make any sense at all..? 😁

for the 50 pin connector the pin numbers are 1 26 2 27 3 28 ... when counted on the solder pads.
for the 44 pin connector, let's say 2 rows and 22 columns, 1 row is all the even pins 2 4 6 8 ... , and one row is all the odd pins 1 3 5 7 .... the silkscreen indicates where pin 1 is, and for through hole it is often marked by a square solder pad.

Joakim wrote on 2021-05-27, 19:44:

Weedeewee is pitch the distance between pins? The total width of the set of pins is ca 32 mm and there are 20 pins in width. So […]
Show full quote

Weedeewee is pitch the distance between pins? The total width of the set of pins is ca 32 mm and there are 20 pins in width. So ca 1.5 mm between pins?

So I don't really know what is up and down in your schematic Snufkin. I measured as in my picture I took, the first pin is upper left corner. Second pin is below that etc. It might upside down, I dont know.

I had a hard time measuring this. It was very tricky to see and use two hands... and trying to note the result.. lost count about 20 times, so then I ended up recording my voice... Some pins were hard to measure because they are shorter and my multimeter is a little thick.

5, 9, 17, 21, 25, 37, 47 (27 maybe)
2, 10, 12, 28, 38, 50

does it make any sense at all..? 😁

Hmm, connectors sometimes have different length pins to allow for hot swapping.

Ok, I've marked up what I think are the pin numbers in red text (based on the PCB silkscreen numbering), then put blue dots on the pins you've measured, and it looks pretty much like what I was guessing. I think the only one missing is pin 39 (pin 23 using your numbering).

Just for reference, translating from your system to the PCB numbering, the grounds pins as you measured are:
(1, 7, 12, 20, 21, 25) and (27, 32, 38, 40, 42, 46, 48)

At least I got grounds in the right place. So I still think it's 44 pin PATA, but with extra pairs at 1/26, 7/32 and 21/46. Maybe pin 26 is something to do with MA/SL/CS (don't know how that'd work with only one pin)?

[oh, just spotted you measured 20 as ground, which I think would be DA0, so not sure what's going on there. The rest look ok]

snufkin wrote on 2021-05-27, 20:45:

Hmm, connectors sometimes have different length pins to allow for hot swapping.

that thing isn't intended for hot swapping.

weedeewee wrote on 2021-05-27, 21:07:

snufkin wrote on 2021-05-27, 20:45:

Hmm, connectors sometimes have different length pins to allow for hot swapping.

that thing isn't intended for hot swapping.

Well, no, but I'm wondering what the connector actually is, and how to go about converting it to a more standard IDE connector, which can then be used with an PATA to SATA adapter, which I think was the original aim. Sounds like it's probably 1.27mm pitch (32mm/24 pins). But I think 44 pin PATA is 2mm pitch and standard 40 pin is 2.54mm. Which starts to sound messy just using connectors and cables (I once had to attach 1mm ribbon cable to a connector designed for 1.27mm, not fun). So it starts to sound like having to recreate the adapter.

Yeah this is going nowhere. I will probably pick up a hdd caddy or even an other(broken) laptop of the same model with the caddy..

snufkin wrote on 2021-05-27, 21:54:

Well, no, but I'm wondering what the connector actually is, and how to go about converting it to a more standard IDE connector, which can then be used with an PATA to SATA adapter, which I think was the original aim. Sounds like it's probably 1.27mm pitch (32mm/24 pins). But I think 44 pin PATA is 2mm pitch and standard 40 pin is 2.54mm. Which starts to sound messy just using connectors and cables (I once had to attach 1mm ribbon cable to a connector designed for 1.27mm, not fun). So it starts to sound like having to recreate the adapter.

yep, it's 1.27mm 32mm/25pins ! (since there's 50 pins in total.)

Joakim wrote on 2021-05-28, 11:15:

Yeah this is going nowhere. I will probably pick up a hdd caddy or even an other(broken) laptop of the same model with the caddy..

Probably easiest, quickest and possibly cheapest option. So that 50 pin connector is probably the same size as the 1.8" IDE 50 pin connector, but with a pinout just different enough (doesn't have the ABCDEF pins at the start for the drive configuration, but with extra Grounds in the middle) to mean having to modify any adapter.

Best way I can think (short of making a new PCB) would be to make up a 1.27mm pitch connector Female to Male cable using .63mm ribbon cable (could scavenge this from a UDMA cable), but pulling the extra ground pairs out of the ribbon at the Male end and shunting the resulting 3 strips together. That should get it close to a standard 50 pin IDE, for which you can then get adapters. Would have to be careful around the power pins and how to handle the drive config pins.

(Weedeewee, it doesn't make much difference to the distance, but I think it's 32mm/24 pins because of the fence-post problem. We want to know the distance between each pin, or distance per gap. There are 25 pins, therefore there are 24 gaps. So distance per gap is 32mm/24. If that makes sense? I'm assuming the difference between the measured 32mm and calculated@1.27mm of 30.5mm is down to the difficulty of getting a good measurement)

Hey I just found that I have this connector in one of my parts bins - I was looking for a regular 44-pin IDE cable and this was in the box too. I think it came from a junk lot ages ago but had none of the rest of this computer so I couldn't identify it.

It looks like it fits your laptop though:

It's of no use to me but I can check the pinout or maybe send it to you, if you still have the laptop.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2022-10-26, 15:46:

Hey I just found that I have this connector in one of my parts bins - I was looking for a regular 44-pin IDE cable and this was […]
Show full quote

Hey I just found that I have this connector in one of my parts bins - I was looking for a regular 44-pin IDE cable and this was in the box too. I think it came from a junk lot ages ago but had none of the rest of this computer so I couldn't identify it.

It looks like it fits your laptop though:
Compaq-Connector-2.JPGCompaq-Connector-1.JPG

It's of no use to me but I can check the pinout or maybe send it to you, if you still have the laptop.

Thanks for asking, but I have two adapters by now. 😁