Reference number: CH000415

Installing a PC IDE/EIDE CD drive.

Question:

Installing a PC IDE/EIDE CD drive.

Answer:

Buying tips and help
How to determine the type of CD drive
Before getting started
Set Jumpers
Attach cables
BIOS setup
Software setup
Troubleshooting

Buying tips and help

If you have not already purchased a CD drive please see our CD buying tips section help before continuing.

How to determine the type of CD drive

Additional information about how to determine the type of CD drive can be found on document CH000495.

Before getting started

1. Ensure you have a working bootable floppy diskette with CD-ROM drivers.
2. Write down important information from the top or bottom of the CD-ROM such as the Model Number, Serial Number and specifications.
3. Ensure you are familiar with ESD and its potential dangers.
4. When physically installing the CD drive, ensure the computer is powered down and unplugged.

Set Jumpers

Before installing the CD drive it is important that the drive have the jumpers appropriately set to Master / Slave or Cable Select. For example, if this drive is being attached to the same cable as your hard disk drive, the CD-ROM drive will need to be setup as the SLAVE drive and the Hard Disk Drive will need to be setup as Master or Dual Master.

Note: If possible, it is recommended that if you are installing a CD-R or CD-RW drive that the drive be setup as the Master drive on the second IDE/EIDE interface. This could help in preventing a buffer underrun when creating a CD.

Attach cables

The CD-ROM should have three types of cables connected to it. Start first with the smallest of the three types of cables, the CD-ROM audio cable (or sound card cable). When connecting this cable to the CD-ROM drive it should be a 3 or 4 pin cable connection (see above picture). Verify that the location that you are connecting this cable to is NOT the jumpers on the back of the drive; while it may be possible for the cable to connect to these pins, this could cause additional issues.

Next, connect the 40-pin IDE/EIDE interface cable (large gray ribbon cable) to the back of the CD-ROM drive. This cable will generally have one side of the cable that is red or blue indicating PIN 1. This side of the cable almost always points to where the power connects to the CD-ROM drive.

Finally, connect the power cable to the back of the CD-ROM drive. This cable is generally keyed therefore should only connect to the computer one-way.

Once the computer cables have been connected to the back of the CD-ROM drive, connect the opposite ends of the IDE/EIDE interface cable and the audio cable to their appropriate locations. The audio cable will generally connect to one of the following locations: Sound Card / Motherboard (when onboard sound present) / DVD decoder card.

BIOS setup

Once the CD drive has been connected to the computer, place the case back onto the computer and connect the keyboard, monitor and power to the computer (we recommend that you do not connect all the cables yet, if problems are experienced you may have to disconnect all the cables again).

Once connected, turn on the computer and enter BIOS setup. Verify that the IDE device is setup as Auto or CD Drive. Once verified, save the settings and reboot the computer.

Additional help and information about BIOS can be found on our BIOS page.

Software setup

IDE/EIDE CD-ROM drives generally only require the one or two CD-ROM drives for the drives to work.

If you are using MS-DOS you will need the MS-DOS driver and MSCDEX. Additional information about loading and setting these drivers up on your computer can be found on our CD-ROM driver page.

If you are using Windows 9x, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP it is likely that if the drive is properly installed that it will be automatically detected and installed when the computer first boots up.

CD Drivers can be found on our CD-ROM / CD-R / CD-RW / DVD drivers page.
Computer operating system information can be found on our operating systems page.

Troubleshooting

If additional issues are encountered during or after the installation of the CD-ROM drive, please refer to our main CD-ROM drive page for additional help and information.

If additional issues are encountered during or after the installation of the CD-R drive, please refer to our main CD-R drive page for additional help and information.

If additional issues are encountered during or after the installation of the CD-RW drive, please refer to our main CD-RW drive page for additional help and information.