CD dvd-rw install?

I just got a dvd drive for xmas and installed it into my Dell dimension 2300,and the add new hardware will not install, says there was a problem with installation. I thought with XP it was just plug in and play. Can anyone tel me what to try next. tyvm

 

Are you replacing a drive or adding a second one?

If you already have an optical drive in your Dell and are adding this as a second optical drive you would have to change the jumpers to slave on this one.

 

I am adding a second drive, How do i change to slave ?

 

There should be a diagram on the instruction sheet included with the drive. There are about ten pins in a small box on the back of the drive. A tiny piece of plastic wraps around two pins. You move the piece of plastic(tweezers are helpful) so that it matches the picture for slave/secondary drive. Then plug the drive in to the middle connector on your optical drive cable.

 

There is also a setting called Cable Select, which Dell likes to use. Chances are all your current IDE devices (hard drives, CDs) came shipped from the factory jumpered to CS. If so, I would go that way, since the only thing you need to change it on is the new optical drive..

 

Thanks for the tips,unfortunetly the drive came as an Xmas gift from my kids, with no disk or instructions; prolly off e-bay or something like them. I do no it is from Maddog multimedia, when i downloaded a driver for it and tried to run it; it says target not found. Do i have to take the drive back out?

 

What's the make and model of the drive? The manufacturer's site should have the settings in it's help and support section under manuals. If you take the drive back out it may have a diagram on the label for jumper settings.

I'll make a suggestion here if you don't want to mess with jumpers right now which you can take or leave. If you unplug the power from your old CD drive and unattach it from the data cable leaving it completely unhooked up. You could plug in the power to the new drive and plug it in to the first(end) connector on the data cable where the CD drive was connected. Then restart your machine. If it is auto recognized you would have a working DVD/CD drive. You could go back later and reconnect your old CD drive and make it the slave.

Either way you're going to have to eventually deal with the jumpers on one of the drives to have them both hooked up at the same time.

 

Under WinXP, the drive should need no driver. Knowing that many drives will be sold as bare or OEM, manufacturers typically provide a legend on the label on the drive or even stamp the jumper labelling right into the metal housing. In any event, you're going to have to open the case again.