Installing new devices into a computer is easy to do and anyone who can manage to install a screw in a wall can easily manage to install a CD/DVD drive into a computer.Internal drives offer convenience taking up less space and generally performing faster with the added bonus that the drive doesnt get mislaid easily.External drives can be used on any PC with very little effort to swap between different computers. These drives take up more space than internal drives and are generally slower. However for normal tasks such as watching DVD movies or copying occasional files are more than adequate.
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Steps
- Purchase a compatible drive for your computer
- Ensure the complete removal of the power plug from the rear of the computer.
- Begin by removing all the side panels from your computer (this may require the removal of the top or other parts of the casing)
- Replace the bevel (front plastic part where the disk tray comes out) with a colour to match your computer case design.
- Locate an empty 5.25inch bay within the case that faces an empty external drive bay cover. The covers can be identified in that they are generally towards the top of the case and can be removed with a little elbow grease.
- Set the drives jumpers to slave if it is going to be connected to a cable already with a drive attached. If the drive will have its own cable set the drive to master. If using a SATA (Serial ATA) drive this step can be skipped as drives are set up ready for use.
- Slide the DVD/CD drive into place from the front of the tower into the case and secure with all four mounting screws ensuring the drive is flush with the front of the case
- Locate a data cable from the motherboard(either IDE or SATA cable) and attach to the drive carefully not to bend any of the pins on the drive.
- Insert the IDE/SATA cable into the device.
- Find a spare power cable (Molex plug) and insert into the back of the drive.
- Replace all covers on the computer
- Turn the power back on
- Enter the BIOS by pressing the option shown on screen when prompted (usually F2 or del key)
- Find the device within the screen and ensure it is correctly detected. If it is correctly detected save and exit and continue to start your computer up normally.
- Once loaded you should find the computer will have a new drive detected.
Tips
- If the device has not been detected in the BIOS you may need to enter into the settings menu to manually detect the device. Consult your motherboard manual for how to do this.
- If the device still does not get detected power down the computer and recheck all cables and ensure the jumpers on the device are set correctly
Warnings
- Be careful not to touch any components within the computer as you could get a shock or damage components
- Ensure you carefully attach cables to the drives as it is very easy to damage connection pins
- When troubleshooting a problem do so one step at a time to uncover the issue.
Things You'll Need
- Medium Philips Screwdriver (+ type)
- A new DVD/CD drive
- SATA or IDE cables if none are present in the computer that can be used or none are provided in the box with the drive
- 4 mounting screws (usually provided with the drive)
- Patience (for troubleshooting)
Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Install a CD/DVD ROM into an IBM/Windows PC. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.