Installing CD-Rom in second bay

Hello there,
I have a Dell Dimension 2400 that I want to intall a second CD-ROm in.
According to Dell Tech Sppt and myself we believe I messed up the
optical laser for the existing CD rom that I have in the system now by getting
a label stuck in there. I found out there a three separate lasers for this
cdrom-cdrw-dvd combo. The cdrw and dvd part are working fine, yeah! But
the cdrom cannot read cd's correctly. Weird huh? Anyhoo, I thought I'll just add a cdrom I have from an older PC I had lying around into the second bay.
But would like advice as to how to properly install this piece. I tried to do this on my own. But didn't get very far. I know Im supposed to change some BIOS settings, have the correct drivers and connect the right cables, but I have some questions as to the existing cdrom.

Also, I am working in safe mode due to other issues I had with the system, but the Dell guy said it shouldnt be an issue.

1) In BIOS settings, would this cd be considered slave or master
2) THe cables, I am using the 40 pin connector cable from the cdrom/cdrw/dvd and connecting it to the new cd rom, plus the power
cable, what else do I need?
3)drivers, the dell guy said I could use winxp generic drivers, but when I went to add the hardware, I didnt see cdrom as a choice of hardware to add. If I connect it properly, should the add hardware wizard detect it for me?

Please advise,

Thanks!

 

For what you said, your system got a cable for the HD (normaly is a blue one). The CD-ROM devices get the IDE 2, so conect the extreme of that cable into the DVD-RW and in addition check if the jumper is in Master o Cable Select; the CD-ROM you are going to add goes to the second conector in the IDE cable and the jumper should be in Slave; the drivers Windows will get them for you, be carefull to line the red line in the IDE cable with the Pin 1 in both CD's

 

1. When I installed my DVD burner, I didn't have to change anything in the BIOS. Check on the back of the CD Drive. If you see what you see in the picture I've posted, then put the little plastic piece to the middle. This is usually the Slave setting. If you have two drives then your CD-RW drive should be a master and the CD Drive should be a slave. I think your IDE Cable (the grey one that attaches to your drives) should have space for atleast one more drive. The CD-RW should be at the end.

2. Nothing. A power cable and IDE cable (40 pin one you mentioned) are all you should need.

3. When I installed my DVD Burner, XP recognized it on boot up and installed the drivers for me. The hardware wizard should recognize it.

 

OK, thanks for the replies. I have connected the IDE and power cables, changed the jumper to both slave and cable select, but it is still not being recognized. I think it might have to do with me being in Safe mode.
What else should I be doing. I checked the BIOS and it says the following
First Master, Hard Drive, First Slave, Off, Second Master, CD-ROM, Second Slave, Off. Also, this is an older Samsung CD-Rom from 97, but it still works really well.

I am so close. If this works a lot of my other problems will be solved.

Thank you.

 

If you're using a 40-line IDE cable to connect the drives to the motherboard, the CS (cable-select) setting is not likely to work. Most 40-line cables aren't set up that way -- pin 28 has to be disconnected in the connector for the slave drive, and that's not usually done. Only the 80-line cables can generally be used with the CS jumper setting on the drives.

On the usual 40-line cable, one drive must be set as master, the other as slave. Generally, use the newer (faster?) drive as master. Position on the cable doesn't matter. A sole drive on the cable should be at the end.

On an 80-line cable, position does matter. The master drive will be on the end; the slave drive will be on the middle connector because pin 28 is open on that connector. You can use either the master/slave jumper settings, or the CS jumper settings. But don't mix CS and master/slave settings on the same cable.

Here's why: Each IDE drive has its own controller, but there can be only one active controller on a cable. One controller has to be told to butt out. The "slave" jumper setting does that. When you set the drive for CS, you're telling it to check line 28 to see if it's grounded. If the drive sees a grounded connection on line 28, it will behave as a master. If the drive sees an open line 28, it will behave as a slave.

 

Once you have the jumper setting issues worked out, you may need to go into your BIOS and ensure that all drives are set to AUTO, or use the drive recognition utility to force the BIOS to re-identify the missing drives and allocate resources to them.

BTW -- re jumpers on the drives: the proper placement of the jumper for the various settings varies widely. Check the instructions for your drive. You should be able to get them from the manufacturer's website if you don't have them on the drive's case or in its manual. HollisBrown meant well, but his instructions could be wrong for some drives. And unfortunately, IDE standards are not quite as tight as we might like. Every once in a while, you'll find a drive that just won't play nicely with the other drive on the same cable. It's more likely to happen with older drives.

 

Thanks everyone. I was able to get the CD installed properly. I now have the question of getting it to be recognized by the Windows XP Installation disk. While using the new CD Rom drive, I put the Windows XP CD in, it goes through the motions and then restarts, but it's looking at the CD-R, DVD Drive (master), not the CD Rom (slave). I see a little light go in the cd-rw/dvd, but not the cd-rom. What is the procedure for getting it to read the cd-rom first. I went into the BIOS to change the start up. It gives me two choices to change conguration.
1) hard drive
2) cdrom/dvd drive
I chose CD Rom for start up but it only uses the first primary, not second slave

It does identify everything correctly. It says Primary - Hard disk drive
Second Primary CD/DVD
Second Slave Cd ROm

How can I get it to restart in the second slave cdrom?

 

The only way I know of is to switch the cd rom to master and the dvd rom to slave. This is probably the way to go if the dvd drive is having trouble reading cdrom disks.

 

If your BIOS does not let you specify an IDE boot device that happens to be slaved to another drive on the same IDE channel, you don't have much choice but to set up the drive you want to boot from as the master on that channel.

Given the options provided for boot devices that you have described, my guess is that your system will boot from the first IDE device of the type you've selected that the BIOS finds on startup. The search order is probably:

master device, primary IDE channel
master device, secondary IDE channel
slave device, primary IDE channel
slave device, secondary IDE channel​