I don't get a mental picture of what you are describing there;????
Does Dell do something so that their cables are different?
Not that I know of; but we looked at the connector and right in the middle of it, halfway between the board and the drives, there is a little dent that looks like it could have been done when the case was closed or something.
I have no idea what I am talking about, really, except it was the only odd looking thing on the cable.
"there's a little "dent" right in the middle of the connector"
Could be she's talking about the small tab to prevent putting the ide in the wrong way, very old cables/pc's didn't have this.