What's the difference between the two types of IDE ribbon-cable?

I've gone and ripped mine by accident. All I did was pull the cable from the socket on the back of the DVD unit, and the flimsy bit of plastic that holds the cable to the plug, broke off :-(

I have an old IDE cable, and I'm using it right now. I'm wondering though, should I be doing this, because the cable I'm using now, seems to have only half the amount of ribbs running through it than the one I ripped.

Does it matter? Should/would there be performance issues using this cable?

Everything seems to be working fine, but I'm curious all the same :-/

Len.

The wait can be horrific, but the outcome can be worse - pumeco 2006