STEP 1 : Purchase/Collect The Components

STEP 13 : Configure the Hard Drive & CD-ROM

It is much easier to configure these drives before you actually install them in the case. If you install them first, having enough room to actually set the jumpers can be a problem.

Before doing this, you must decide what type of drives and how many you want in your system. Then you will need to decide how to configure them to make them all work together. Here is some data to help you out:

Your motherboard has two IDE channels, each supporting two devices. So, if you want two hard drives, for example, you should have one be the “master” and the other be the “slave”. Have your main hard drive (the one with your operating system) be your “master” and the other one will be your slave. If you will only have one hard drive, then you will have it configured as the “master”, or on some drives, you would choose “single” or “cable select” to tell the IDE bus that it is the only drive on that chain.

The same procedure goes for your secondary IDE channel, where you will be running your CD drives, tape backups, or if you have other hard drives.

Configuring these drives is very easy. Often the jumper settings are printed on the top of the drive itself. On CD drives, the settings are described right above the jumper pins. On hard drives, the information is printed on the top of the hard drive, if it is printed at all. If not, then consult the manual for it or go online to try finding the specs. The manuals will also outline any special jumper settings such as use of the limiter jumper on Maxtor hard drives.

In general, have hard drives on a separate channel than the CD drives. If you have a second hard drive, set it as slave on IDE 1. Likewise, if you have a second CD drive, such as a CD-RW drive or a DVD, then install it as a slave on IDE 2. Keep in mind you can use a CD-RW or a DVD drive as a CD-ROM drive, although it won’t be as fast in some cases (usually older ones).

If a particular drive does not need to be jumpered at all, it is best to hang the jumper over one pin. This is the same as being unjumpered, but make sure the jumper is there for future use if needed.

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