PC-Pages - CD drive help

4. I have just bought an IDE CD writer/rewriter to add to my system. How do I install it.?

Tools Needed
Crosshead screwdriver (size 1 or 2)
Things to check for
On most systems you are only allowed a total of 4 IDE devices so make sure that you don't have more than 3 currently installed. Common IDE devices are :

Hard Drives
Zip Drives
CD Drives.

Check whether you have sufficient IDE cables and connectors - generally you will need 2 ide cables and preferably a total of 3 connectors on each lead (one connector for motherboard, one for the master device and one for the slave device) With 40 wire ribbon cable for UDMA33 and below it doesn't matter which connector goes where, but on 80wire ribbon cable for UDMA66 each connector is colour coded and has a specific task. Codes are:

Blue - Motherboard
Black - Master
Grey - Slave

Check whether you have sufficient power connectors from the power supply to power the additional device
Check for a free 5.25" bay in your case to physically fit the drive into.

How to connect it up
Remove the sides of the case and check the lengths of ide cables to see which is the best free 5.25" bay to install the drive into - check particularly carefully if you are using the UDMA 66 cables because of the limits on which connector can be used.
Physically open up the Bay
Set the jumpers on the back of the Drive. For users with one hard drive and one CD rom the easiest setting (especially if you are using UDMA66 cable) would be to leave the hard drive as primary master, and to put the two cd's on the secondary cable one as master and the other as slave. Almost all cd's are set with a jumper on the back that connects two pins together. There are almost invariably 3 possible settings and they are grouped together marked MA(master), SL(Slave) and CS(Cable Select).
Insert the drive and screw in both sides (fine thread screws - if you are short then generally speaking the screws on cd's and floppies are fine thread and on hard drives are coarse thread. Do Not Use The Coarse Thread Screws.
Attach the power leads (the connector block has corners taken off so it will only fit one way)
Attach the IDE cable - there is a red stripe and this goes to pin 1 which is almost invariably marked and on a cd is normally nearest the power cable.
Attach any audio fly lead (a thin 4 wire lead that transmits the signal from audio cd's to the sound card) if you have one - not essential

Set the Bios
If you have an award Bios then generally you should not need to perform any bios settings but if you have AMI Bios then you will need to enter the Bios (hit delete key at power on) and choose the 'Autodetect hard drives' Option then save changes and exit
Let the machine boot into windows, and load its software.