The Drive Way - Installing a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or CD-RW Drive

(Page 8 of 10 )

In my server, I’ve chosen to add a DVD-ROM drive as the master and a CD-RW as the slave. This requires the top two 5¼-inch bays and a single 40-pin cable. Incidentally, the reason CD/DVD drives are often in the top two bays isn’t necessarily so that reaching them is more convenient (if planted on the floor next to your desk), but rather because they’re typically the longest of the drives and may intrude on motherboard space. If you’ve run out of power connections, you can pick up a Y cable that will split one connection into two (see Figure 6-5). As with the hard drives, make sure your two CD devices are properly configured as master and slave.

Figure 6-5 - The power Y cable can create two power connections out of one.

To install the master CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, pull out the top 5¼-inch bay blank.

1. Slide in the drive.
   

2. Secure this side of the drive with four screws (we’ll get to the other side later).
   
   It’s very important to use four screws on each side, as any vibration from the drive spinning insecurely may cause read (and write) errors.
   
   
   The 40-pin IDE cable for the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive is identical to the cable for the hard drive. The only difference may be that it has 40 wires rather than 80 wires, depending on the speed of the drive.
   
   
3. Insert the top master connector on the 40-pin cable to the rear of the drive—again, align the red stripe side with pin 1.
   
   
4. Plug in one of the large four-pin power cables.
   
   
5. Insert the tail end of the cable to the remaining IDE connection (secondary or 2nd) on the motherboard.
   
   
6. To install the slave CD-RW, follow the same procedures for installing the slave hard drive device. Set the jumper setting to slave, and then insert the CD-RW into the bay just below the master.
   
7. After you’ve secured it into place with its four screws, insert the secondary slave connection of the cable from the master drive.

This chapter is from Build Your Own Server, by Tony Caputo (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2004, ISBN: 0072227281). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today. Buy this book now.

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