Okay, I am new to computer stuff, and I recently purchased a cd/dvd drive and now, i have no clue on how to install this. the instructions are included but it talks about the drive and the secondary IDE port? okay i am lost, its shows a picture of a ATAPI CD-ROM Drive and then the drive i purchased. what i am lost on is do i remove the drive that came with the computer and install this one in that ones place or am i adding on another drive. PLEASE. i know this sounds stupid but I havent any clue on what i am doing, and before i do this and Break the computer i thought i would find someone who can help me please.

Thank you in advance.

Hello MsVamire,

The first thing you ought to know is that you won't wreck your computer by trying to installing a CD drive, the worst thing that you happen is that you could kill your computer by static (so make sure you discharge any static), otherwise it should just be fine. So don't worry about it, just have faith in yourself and you'll install it in no time.

Okay, so here are some general instructions that might help you.

Firstly, you can install this CD/DVD drive along with the other ones, provided that you have space for it (you need three things to install a drive: 1) IDE cable (if you are using that) 2) The space to install it (like another bay) 3) You need power cables.

And this is what you basically do to install it (the instructions for your particular model might be different, but I'm sure this might help you)

1) Open the CPU cover
2) Remove the expansion bay cover (if you are install it on another bay), if not then remove the screws on your older drive, then remove the power cable, and then remove the IDE cable and remove the drive
3) Put your drive in place
4) Plug in the IDE cables (these are the flat ones) and then the power supply cables
5) Screw the drive into place and put the CPU cover

The only thing that you might want to pay attention to is the jumper, I recommend keeping the jumpers on cable select, so that you don't have to pick the master (the main drive) and the slave (the drive that needs a master drive).

And you're good to go! That's all you do, so you shouldn't have any problem with it!

Quick note:
your motherboard should have the ide channels numbered
little numbers written above or below the place this cable attatches to the motherboard. For best results use the next available slot numerically.
If you already have another cd drive installed you may wish to use the same cable to attatch both, if you wish to do cd->cd copying i do not recommend this if you have a choice. Otherwise there should be no performance loss in doing so.
You can look at the connections on your hard drive it will be the other drive connected by an IDE cable to compare the results.
don't forget to plug the power cable in, it will likely fit in both ways, so plug it in such that when looking at the front (drive tray) of the drive, the... yellow wire is to your left, as this is pin 1. (yes yellow, had to open my case and double check, lol) hope this helps

__________________

</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Just to add to William's great advise: The power cable has onle one way of fitting in... if you take the power cable and look at it you will notice that the edges of the connecter are belvelled (well the connector is not perfectly square, because it's edges are curved on the top edges). So there is onle one way that you can put in the power cable (and the IDE cable for that matter).

Basically, if it goes in properly, you've connected it properly...
(sorry if I'm wrong here, William might be right but when I fixed a DVD burner for my friend, I noticed that the only way you can connect all the wires to the drive is the correct way)