Do I unstall cd-r first?

Good morning.
Yesterday I bought a cd-rw and I was wondering if I have/need to unstall the old cd-r first? I mean use the cd-r space or the one below it? (Gee, how unarticulate - sorry!) Got a cheapie sound card too, I know I have to install that first, no prob. I guess I am wondering if there will be conflicts or if it is unnecessary to leave in cd-r. I'm pretty sure I can do this myself..(with your help!) Thanks as always.

 

It depends what other drives you have, but if you only have your cd drive on your 2nd IDE cable you can leave it in there, but i would put the burner as master at the end of the cable and your cd-r as slave in the middle of the cable

 

Hi General Lee,
Okay, maybe I can't do this myself lol! Pc looks like this, hard drive, cd-r, spare, floppy, spare. I have another IDE cable that I took out of our old pc when it crashed. I haven't opened the case in a while, I hate unplugging everything, I always think it won't ever work again! So, can you explain a little more about putting the cd-r in the "middle of the cable"? I'm learning slowly but I don't quite understand that! Thanks.

 

What you want to end up with is your hard drive on it's own cable. (at the end of the cable) Then, you'll put your two CD drives on the same cable. (the CD-RW at the end of the cable (master) and the CD-R in the middle of the cable (slave))

There are only a couple of things you need to do.

1) Make sure you have 2 cables. 1 plugged into each connector on the motherboard.
2) Make sure the jumpers are set correctly for the drives. HDD:Master, CD-RW:Master, CD-R:Slave
3) Plug the HDD into the end of the cable on the primary IDE connector. Plug the CD drives into the end and middle of the cable on the secondary IDE connector.

There is no need for drivers, or reinstalling or anything else like that. Just plug them in and you should be good to go.

 

Ok, what he means is to use the other connector thats on the IDE cable. You should have one cable that goes to your hard drive(s), and one that goes to your CD-R drive. On the cable that goes to the CD-R drive there should be another connector halfway along the cable.

You've slightly confused me with your description! hard drive (3 1/2 inch bay) cdr (3 1/2 inch bay??), floppy (3 1/2 inch bay), spare (5 1/4 inch bay)?

Oh yes and also, bear in mind you must plug a power cable into the drive before it'll work, and you'll have to look up in the manual how to set the drive to "slave". It usually involves getting some tweezers and moving a jumper to short out two pins from one to another. But somtimes you dont need to do that as it detects it automatically (Cable Select)

Bah, didnt see ya post there! Heh

 

Goldfish,
Oh, okay, yes it does have the connection halfway down the cable, I didn't look. Maybe this will be clearer if I open the case (if I never get back here, you'll know I messed up!), the manual does show how to do that, it has a quick install sheet too, with pictures (in colour no less), I will read through it again. And yes, that is what I meant, I forgot they are called "bays", today as always I learn something new!

 

Thanks Wyatt,
Your instructions are probably clearer than the manual! I will print all this coz I still don't quite get the jumper part. Quick question, do I really need both cd drives anymore, how will they work together? Thank you.

 

Goldfish
P.S. Thank you! And what power cable, another one? Trouble with rural living, so far to get help!!!

 

I was confused with the description as you cant fit a CD-R in a floppy drive bay, and its weird to have a floppy in a 5 1/4 bay. But anyway! Thats irrelevant

http://www.pcstats.com/articleimages/hddinstall_install4.jpg
Here, have a diagram! The one with the coloured wires coming out of the plastic connector is the molex power adaptor.

Actually, here is a handy little guide on how to install the CD drive http://www.cheap-discount-computer-parts.com/install_a_cd_drive.htm
You want to set it as slave, which should be in your quickstart guide. A jumpet is a little piece of metal that shorts two pins which you can make short different pins by moving it. You'll have 6 pins exposed on the back of the drive (look at step 6), and the jumper will connect two of them. You have 3 choices, Master, Slave or Cable Select (effectivley automatic).
I know, I thought it was somthing to put on when youre cold as well.. lol.

If you dont take the side panel of the case off, you will have GREAT difficulty in getting to the drives heh.

 

Oh my god Goldfish, thank you so much! I still don't quite get it with the "bay" thing. My pc was a work one, it is set up so you can use a key thing and lock the hard drive or actually take it out I guess. Then the cd rom (we are looking from the front, right) is under that, then an empty bay, etc. I will get the guide too. Gee have you thought of doing more of this helping stuff, you're pretty good at it - lol . Again thanks and I will try and do it tomorrow, hopefully I'll be back to let you all know how I did.

 

Heh, don't worry, helping out is what I do Well, see attached diagram. Now I understand what you mean, you have a hot swapable hard drive which you can pull out from the front of the case, correct?
Well, anyway, it doesnt matter as you're not connecting it to that IDE channel.

Diagram : These are the bays, you slide the drives in from the front after taking the plastic cover off, then screw it in to the slots.

 

Hi goldfish
I DID IT! Well there were a few snags, under the plastic cover on the front was a metal piece, finally figured out how to break it out. Switched the cd-r with the cd-rw and then merrily connected them the wrong way! ( BTW, yes, it is a swappable hard drive, I knew you could take it out but didn't know you could use a different one. Hmm) Okay, here's what I did (wrong). IDE cable was from hd and then to cd and also floppy. One cable. cd already set to slave like you said. Used new cable and connected the cd-r on its own. Set to master. Great, turn it own, pc boots all is good. THEN... big freeze, followed by BSOD and then after a reboot get (basically) "no disks found except sec slave disk, Disk boot failure, insert system disk" .... My jaw hit the floor, but then....I remembered to try the BIOS, reset to defaults and it booted - phew. So I thought I would just take out old cd and go from there. Turned out that under pressure, I had used the old cable on the new cd-rw. and the new on the old cd-r. (There's that jumper conflict, I'm used to knitting them not shorting them-lol) So to make a long story longer, thank you again (and everyone else too) for all your help we are good to go, new lesson learned. BTW reminded me of the importance of having those boot disks. I need to make new ones, this time I was lucky.
One day, I too, will be a geek and be proud of it!!

 

sorry to pirate this thread but....
goldy! what kind of MONSTER case is that!!?

 

I was wondering that too, pretty awesome looking. Maybe it came from the future! Goldfish, did you BUILD this?

 

Naahhh... I wish I just did a google imagesearch and that was the most useable image i could find to draw on.

This is my case (the wire coming off it is for the AC powered casefans at front and back, 86mm papst fans)

 

That looks neat, kind of like a washing machine for nerds! Was it hard to do?

 

Lol! thats somthing I've not heard before! The window was a bit of a bitch to put in, cutting the hole was fine but getting the acrylic to sit in the hole with the rubber edging in place was quite hard!

That silver thing in one of the bays is a temperature probe readout, one goes to the video card, the other goes to the intake temperature. I was gunna have it go next to the CPU, but it was too fiddley and it kept gettin in between the heatsink and the CPU, which stopped it from booting.

It's also got a red light on the machine as well as a 8 segment 2 digit readout to get error codes from, which is very handy. Shame my current desk hides it all!

My next rig when i get the money I'm gunna go for a P4 setup, and If ive got some spare cash, im gunna watercool!

 

Ha, and I think I'm clever coz I installed the sound card! And the burner! You did an awesome job, must be nice to have something that isn't like everyone else's. Make sure you post a pic of your new pc when you get it. When I was a little kid I was always getting into trouble for taking things apart to see how they worked, I'm finally getting the chance to do that without getting into trouble but now I have to put it back together too! If the electric things had been like your pc I would have been able to sit down more often!