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This article was excerpted from: PC Upgrading and Troubleshooting QuickSteps

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Adding a CD-ROM, DVD, or other optical drive to your computer should take less than an hour and requires a Phillips head screwdriver.

BEFORE YOU BUY

• Do you have a free drive bay? Look inside your PC's case and make sure there is an open, full-sized drive bay for your new drive (see Figure 1). Just because there's a blank space on the front of your PC doesn't mean the drive bay inside is empty; it may house a hard drive. If there's no space for another optical drive, you'll either have to remove your current drive, or buy an external drive that attaches to your computer via a USB or FireWire connection.

  

  Figure 1: Do you have an open drive bay?

• Do you have an open EIDE channel? Like internal hard drives, internal optical drives connect to the EIDE cables inside your computer. Most computers only support four devices, so make sure you have somewhere to connect your drive.
• Do you have a free power connector? If you don't, you can buy a Y connector that turns one power connector into two.

PREPARE YOUR DRIVE

Like any device connected to an EIDE cable, an optical drive has jumpers that need to be set to either master or slave. Most optical drives have a diagram printed on the outside of the drive's case illustrating the jumper settings.

Remove any plastic on the face of your computer that covers the empty drive bay. These covers can usually be removed by pinching the ends and pushing (from the inside) or pulling (from the outside).

CONNECT YOUR DRIVE

1. Slide the drive through the front opening of your computer case into the drive bay until it is flush with the face of your computer (see Figure 2). Attach the screws that fasten the drive to the chassis.

   

   Figure 2: Slide the drive to the front of the chassis.

2. Connect the EIDE cable to the back of the drive (see Figure 3).

   

   If the EIDE cable connector doesn't have the raised ridge on one edge that prevents it from being connected with the wrong orientation, take care how you connect it. The edge of the EIDE cable with a red stripe should match with Pin 1 on the optical drive connector. Check the drive's documentation to determine which side is Pin 1.

   

   Figure 3: Connect the EIDE and power cables to the back of the drive.

3. Connect the power cable.

4. If you want to install an audio CD cable to carry analog audio signals to your sound card, connect it now.

5. Turn on your computer and watch the screen for error messages. Windows should automatically recognize and install the drive. You should be able to see it in Windows Explorer.

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