2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter cable the wrong way round?

[adolescent]

The gender isn't wrong.  Cables for 40 and 44 pin IDE are both female, and the controller/devices are both male.

If you're thinking of extending a cable with the gender changer then it won't work.  (As explained to me on EAB) when you use a simple pin header to extend a cable you end up inverting the top and bottom rows of the cable.

[adolescent]

@moto

I had the same question.  It was explained, and I did a little experiment to understand why.  

Take two bits of paper and draw a female connector on each and number the end pins (1,2,43,44).  Now, get those two female connectors to line up correctly. :-D

To answer your other question, yes you can blow stuff up if you hook the cable up wrong.  I blew out a buffered IDEfix adapter hooking it up wrong on my A1200.