Page 1a/1b - The Introduction, the Case & the PSU	Page 4a/4b/4c/4d - Expansion Cards & Peripherals
Page 2a/2b - The Motherboard, Processor & RAM	Page 5a/5b - The Dial-Up Modem
Page 3 - The Disk Drives	Page 6 - The Assembly & Installing Windows

The Disk Drives

Hard Disk Drives

An IBM IDE hard disk drive

A modern computer cannot function without at least one hard disk drive (HDD) containing copies of the operating system and the applications it runs. Long gone are the days when home computers stored everything they needed on floppy disks or tapes.

Solid-state drives (SSD drives) are now a viable alternative to hard disk drives. They use flash memory similar to that used in USB flash drives (memory sticks) to store the data instead of the magnetic platters that hard disk drives use. SSD drives are currently used mainly in ultra-portable laptop PCs because they use less power. Currently, SSD drives cost much more per gigabyte of disk space than hard disk drives and their disk space is much lower. As the price of flash memory falls and the capacities of SSD drives increase, they will probably replace hard disk drives in both desktop and laptop PCs.

I personally prefer Maxtor (now owned by Seagate), Western Digital, and Seagate hard disk drives.

Like RAM, the hard disk drive is a system critical device that has to function perfectly. Any manufacturer consistently making drives that failed would go out of business very quickly. That is probably why it is so difficult to buy a bad hard drive.

Note well that hard drives with a high revs-per-minute rating (7200RPM, 10,000RPM) get much hotter than drives with a lower rating (5400RPM). Therefore, be sure to install a drive with a high rev rating in its bay so that it has space around it. Do not cram it in between other drives. If you have odd problems with the system, consider buying and installing a cooling unit for such a drive. Visit Overclockers.co.uk to see an example under Cooling.

The method of configuration and installation depends on the type of hard drive being installed. The methods differ for the three main types - IDE ATA, serial ATA (SATA), and SCSI. IDE ATA hard drives, also known as parallel ATA (PATA) hard drives are still being manufactured, but are in the process of being replaced by SATA hard drives in home PCs.

All you have to do is make up your mind which make, type (IDE, SATA, or SCSI), and size of drive is supported by your computer and suits your needs best. You can purchase it from a retail outlet, mail-order company, or from an auction website. Note that some new motherboards might not have an IDE connector for an IDE drive, so you will have to use an SATA drive.

Note well that you should erase the content of any hard drive you purchase second-hand properly with a specialised low-level utility such as Eraser, which is free, because, even though the drive is formatted, any illegal content that the previous owner had on the drive, such as illegal pornography, will be recoverable by disk-editing software. It would be a good idea to do likewise with a new hard drive, because it may have been returned to the manufacturer with data on it, repaired, and resold as new. It is not too improbable a set of circumstances that your computer could be stolen and the police recover it and examine the hard drive forensically to find out if the original owner's name can be found, and you then get arrested for having illegal images on it.

A hard drive is a crucial and delicate piece of hardware that can sometimes arrive non-functional, so I would pay the extra and buy it from a retail outlet so that it can easily be returned instead of sending it by mail or by using a courier service. I personally always purchase brand new hard drives, because, with a second-hand drive, I won't know how its previous owner treated it or what data was saved on it.

If you want to use the system for graphic-intensive work, video editing, or CAD work, you should buy an SCSI hard drive. If the motherboard does not have an inbuilt SCSI Controller, you will have to buy a PCI adapter card such as are provided by Adaptec that provides a controller.

The installation of more than a single SCSI drive is more complicated than an IDE drive, because SCSI devices are daisy-chained together and therefore each SCSI device has to be given an ID number, and the devices on each end of a daisy chain of devices has to be 'terminated' so that the computer knows where the chain begins and ends, so, if you don't know how to do that, make sure that you buy a boxed product that comes with an installation manual. You should also be able to search the web for and find tutorials on SCSI configuration and installation. You can use the Google search box provided at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled). A search term such as install + scsi + hard + drive (as is) should bring up plenty of links

Most tutorials come in the PDF format, so you should have the free Adobe Reader or another PDF reader installed in your PC.

A hard disk drive is easy to install whether it is boxed (the product comes with cables, screws, driver software, 3.5 inch caddy for 5.5 inch bays), or bare, OEM (the product is supported by the vendor not the manufacturer and comes with no accessories at all).

If you purchased a boxed retail motherboard, it should have come with all of the cables necessary to install all of the hard drives and CD/DVD drives that it supports. Windows XP/Vista will load the IDE device drivers automatically, so all you require is a bare drive with the four screws needed to attach it to one of the 3.5 inch bays in the case. Two IDE ribbon cables (with connection points for four drives) and a floppy disk drive cable are usually provided with the motherboard. Round IDE cables instead of ribbon cables can also be provided. However, most new computers now come with SATA hard drives, the ribbon cables for which are much thinner than IDE ribbon cables.

Both IDE ATA and serial ATA (SATA) drives are attached by special cables directly to the motherboard, or to a PCI adapter card.

The type of IDE ATA ribbon cable shown in the image below on the left can accommodate two drives each. There is a second connector that connects to a drive in the middle of the cable.

Round cables for IDE drives that can accommodate two drives or just a single drive are available. An image of these round cables is shown a little further down this page.

The ribbon cable shown in the image on the right is for a floppy disk drive. It has a twist in the conductors that is clearly visible at the end of the connector that must always be fitted to the floppy disk drive itself.

IDE ATA hard disk drive ribbon cable that can connect two drives to the motherboard

You can also purchase an add-on PCI card for an IDE drive if you want to install more than the usual maximum of four drives - or if you want to use a higher mode of the IDE ATA standard that is not supported by the motherboard. Serial ATA (SATA) drives use thinner ribbon cables that can only accommodate a single drive.

The image below shows the two types of cable. The 80-pin IDE cable is on the left.

Showing an SATA cable next to an IDE cable

There is more information on SATA hard disk drives further down this page.

Note that you can purchase bay conversion units that allow you to fit 3.5 inch hard drives in 5.5 inch bays that usually only house CD/DVD drives.

A serial ATA (SATA) hard drive has its own much thinner cable that can only be used with one drive.

Note that information on the differences between the two different types of ribbon IDE cables, and information about serial ATA hard drives is provided further down this page. This is important information, and has to be made use of when installing a hard disk drive.

Hard drives: Heat and cooling

You can connect a mixture of four IDE hard drives or CD/DVD drives to most most ATX motherboards (some allow more), and you can install a PCI IDE card that allows you to install more. Most current motherboards also provide four SATA connectors for SATA hard drives or CD/DVD drives. (SATA CD/DVD drives are becoming more common.) But before you add more drives make sure that the power supply unit (PSU) won't be overstretched, and make sure that they are installed with overheating in mind.

If you install more than one hard drive, you should take great care with how they are installed and kept cool. Most recent 7200RPM (rpm = revs per minute) and 10,000RPM high-speed IDE ATA drives generate a significant amount of heat, which is a major cause of drive failure.

You should leave at least a 10mm gap between drives, which can mean drilling mounting holes in new positions on the drive bays. Cooling units for a hard drive are available. Visit Overclockers.co.uk to see an example under Cooling. You can also add extra cooling fans to the case that are installed so that they blow air over the drives.

Or, if your computer's motherboard has the correct ports, you can add one or more external USB or FireWire or eSATA hard disk drives.

If the motherboard doesn't have the required Hi-Speed USB 2.0 or FireWire ports, you can install a PCI adapter card that provides them.

How to configure and install a hard disk drive (HDD)

Installing disk drives in the drive bay of a computer's case and attaching them to the motherboard and the power supply unit with the correct cables isn't difficult, but it should be done properly and with care. Don't ever use force! All of the connectors are keyed nowadays so that they can only fit into a particular socket the right way around. If you have to force anything into place, you're probably not installing it properly.

Remember that (if you are installing an IDE drive instead of an SATA drive) it is now possible to purchase round IDE disk drive cables (HDD and CD/DVD cables) instead of traditional ribbon cables. They can be used with an ATA drive of any specification. They take up less space than ribbon cables and therefore don't inhibit the flow of air inside the case as much.

The image below shows the individual cables. As you can see, as with ribbon cables, they can accommodate two drives each. Single-drive cables are also available. For some reason, they come in a wide variety of garish colours, such as red and blue.

Round blue IDE cables

Problems with the new round IDE hard drive cables

From the alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt newsgroup

"Hi, I recently bought a set of CoolerMaster round IDE cables and I'm wondering if anyone has the same experience of the 45cm ones that I have. Trying to fit them on two drives close together is almost impossible without great force which didn't seem right to me. I spaced the drives apart and then only after cutting back some of the rubber shield would they bend enough to fit on the drives, if I had the drives right next to each other they just won't bend enough. The 60cm [cable] I bought for the DVD and CD burner doesn't have this problem. Also I managed to pull two of the tabs off when I needed to swap drives around. I certainly won't be buying anymore CoolerMaster cables in a hurry. I was going to buy the cheaper ones but decided on these as I thought they would be better. Wish I'd have saved a few quid now."

How to mount a hard disk drive

Note well - use screws of the correct length to secure a hard drive in a bay. If the screws are too long they can easily penetrate the drive and render it useless. Bare OEM hard drives (not the retail, boxed product) usually don't come with screws or cables, so purchase the correct screws from the dealer if you didn't get a packet of screws with your case or motherboard.

Below are the kind of instructions that are provided in the manual that is provided with a retail boxed hard drive, or that can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website for OEM drives that are supported by the vendor instead of the manufacturer. These instructions were provided in the manual of a Seagate drive.

"You can mount the drive in any orientation [vertically, horizontally, any way up] using four screws in the sidemounting holes or four screws in the bottom-mounting holes... Follow these important mounting precautions when mounting the drive: Allow a minimum clearance of 0.030 inches (0.76 mm) around the entire perimeter of the drive for cooling. Use only 6-32 UNC mounting screws. The screws should be inserted no more than 0.200 inch (5.08 mm) into the bottom mounting holes and no more than 0.14 inch (3.55 mm) into the side mounting holes. Do not over-tighten the mounting screws (maximum torque: 6 inch-lb). Do not use a drive interface cable that is more than 18 inches long."

You can download a manual for any make/model of hard drive from its manufacturer's website. It usually provides installation instructions.

Although you can mount hard disk drives in any position you like, I prefer to mount them horizontally with the label on the top and the printed circuit board (PCB) on the bottom.

Note that if a drive has been run for a long time in one position and the orientation is changed, there's a slightly increased chance of mechanical trouble because the bearings may have become acclimatised to the original orientation and have worn in a particular way. The new orientation could load the bearings slightly differently and they may cause trouble or suffer from accelerated wear.

How to configure and install a hard disk drive - continued

The method of configuration and installation depends on the type of hard drive being installed. The methods differ for the three main types - IDE ATA, SATA, and SCSI.

IDE ATA hard drives are still manufactured, but are in the process of being replaced by SATA hard drives in home PCs.

Most motherboards have two IDE ports, each of which supports two IDE drives, one or more of which can be a CD or DVD drive. You can add additional drives by installing a PCI adapter card, such as those made by Promise (look under Legacy Products). The additional drives are attached to the IDE ports on the adapter card, which uses its own BIOS to configure the drives.

Click here! to view annotated images of motherboards on this site showing the two IDE ATA channels, and one floppy disk drive channel. Click your browser's Back button to return to this point on this page.

Serial ATA (SATA) drives

All new motherboards provide several connectors (six or more) for serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives, and may or may not provide one or two connectors for IDE ATA (Parallel ATA/PATA) drives.

Serial ATA (SATA) uses a single cable per drive. You cannot attach more than one drive to a cable. While you do not configure an SATA drive using jumpers, as is the case with IDE ATA drives, there may be a jumper setting that can reduce the capacity of the drive for motherboards that only support a certain size of drive.

The installation is simplicity itself - just attach the keyed serial cable to the drive and the other end to the motherboard, and attach a power connector from the computer's power-supply unit to the drive. The cable is keyed so that one end can only connect to the motherboard and the other end to the drive, so it can't be installed the wrong way round.

If the motherboard has a mixture of IDE ATA and SATA drive connectors (ports), and you want to install both types of drive, consult the motherboard's manual to find out how to install a particular type of drive as the primary drive and as secondary drives. If the motherboard only has SATA connectors (ports), its manual will also show you which of them is used for the primary and secondary drives. If you don't possess a motherboard user manual, download a copy from its manufacturer's site.

It's also possible to buy a PCI adapter card that allows SATA drives to be connected to the system via the PCI bus.

There is more information on SATA drives further down this page.

There is usually a diagram on the hard drive itself (of the kind illustrated below), showing the jumper settings to configure it as a master or slave device. The configuration table is fixed to the top or bottom of the drive.

The illustrated configuration information on a Maxtor IDE hard disk drive

The Master, Slave, and CS Enabled (Cable Select) jumper settings are clearly shown on the Maxtor drive shown above.

Note that due to political correctness that is offended by the words Master and Slave, new drives will probably be using the terms Primary and Secondary instead, but I will continue using the clearer Master and Slave. A PC with four drives would have a primary master, a primary slave, a secondary master, and a secondary slave, but if Primary and Secondary replace the traditional terminology, the four drives will be called a primary primary, a primary secondary, a secondary primary, and a secondary secondary, which is somewhat absurd.

The Cap Limit setting shown in the image above automatically sets the drive to a system's maximum size capacity, because many systems cannot run huge drives. This particular DiamondMax Plus drive (5400RPM, 2MB cache, 12.6ms disk access time), has a capacity of 300GB that unmodified Windows 9x systems, which run the FAT16 or FAT32 file systems, won't be able to run as a single (unpartitioned) volume. Windows XP, running its NTFS file system, can run such a drive unpartitioned if the motherboard's BIOS setup program allows it. Windows XP was released in October 2001. Nevertheless, you need to install Service Pack 1 (SP1) or Service Pack 2 (SP2), which incorporates it, to be able to use drives larger than 137GB. (Note that Windows XP SP3 was made available to home users in May 2008.)

All of the versions of Windows Vista provides large drive support for drives larger than 137GB.

For more information on what you need to know in order to upgrade a hard disk drive on a particular PC, visit this Upgrade Checklist on this site.

If the BIOS setup program doesn't provide large drive support, reflashing it with the latest BIOS file from the PC manufacturer or motherboard manufacturer's site might fix the problem. Otherwise, installing a new PCI IDE adapter card of the kind made by Promise, or a new motherboard that has a BIOS capable to recognising such a large hard drive is the only remedy.

I prefer using the sound Master/Slave settings to configure drives, but the easiest way to configure and install an IDE ATA 66/100/133 hard drive, which has to be installed using an 80-conductor ribbon cable (not an old-style 40-conductor cable), is to set the drive's jumpers to the Cable Select setting.

ATA stands for Advanced Technology Attachment. The technology is dealt with comprehensively on this page:

Advanced Technology Attachment -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment

The two types of cables are dealt with in the above article and on the following pages:

Standard (40-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Cable.htm

Ultra DMA (80-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html

When jumpered for Cable Select, the cable plus the jumpering determines which is the master drive and which is the slave drive. The master drive will go to the black connector on the 80-conductor ribbon cable, and if a slave is used, it will be connected to the ribbon's middle (grey) connector. The ribbon's blue connector fits to the motherboard.

Note that as long as two hard drives are themselves jumpered to enable the Cable Select setting, you can swap them from the master to slave positions on the ribbon cable.

If the Cable Select setting is not being used, the boot hard drive containing the operating system (Windows), always installed on the Primary IDE Channel on the motherboard, must be set as the master drive.

The boot hard drive is the drive (or the partition on a hard drive) on which the operating system is installed. The boot hard drive must always be installed on the Primary IDE Channel.

Placing a jumper across two pins on a hard drive activates a particular setting. Sometimes removing a jumper will activate a setting. The two white jumpers, on the port face of the hard disk drive shown below, can be seen clearly next to the power supply port with its four pins on the far right side of the drive.

The port face of an ATA IDE hard disk drive

All current hard drives have a keyed socket that one of the keyed plugs coming from the power supply unit fits.

The diagrams below show where a 40-conductor or an 80-conductor ribbon cable and the plug from the power supply unit are connected on a standard IDE hard drive.

In the first case, for older drives, the 40-conductor ribbon cable has a red line down one edge that has to be connected to the side of the connection socket where Pin 1 is located, which is usually the side closest to the power connector's socket. In the second case, for current drives, the cable is "keyed" so that it can only fit in the socket one in one way.

Diagram showing how a HDD is connected to a ribbon cable and power connector

The connection sockets for the power and data cables on an IDE hard disk drive

In the colour image of a hard drive above, you can see the cutting for the "key" in the IDE connector on the far right. The power plug from the power supply unit fits into the connector on the far left.

IDE cables are now usually (but not always) keyed so that they fit only one way into the motherboard or to the drive itself. If this is the case, there is a large ridge in the middle of each connector and a smaller ridge at each end that matches a cutting on the IDE connection points on the motherboard and the drive itself.

With the drive fixed in a drive bay in the case, other than plugging it to the power supply, all you have to is attach one end of the connector of an IDE cable to the motherboard's Primary IDE Channel (the boot drive must go on the primary channel as shown in the motherboard's manual), and (if a 40-conductor cable is being used) attach one of the two other connectors along its length to the drive itself.

In other words, with this particular cable, as long as the side with the red line along its length is attached to Pin 1 on the motherboard's Primary or Secondary IDE Channel, you can attach a master or a slave drive to either the end or the middle connector.

If an 80-conductor cable is being used, the hard drive must be attached to an end connector according to the colour code, which is usually the blue connector connected to the motherboard and the black connector connected to the hard drive. The middle connector is used for slave drives.

Note that a modern IDE ATA drive can be installed in the case in any orientation - it doesn't matter which way up it is as long as there is the required space for cooling purposes between it and the case. However, most technicians install a drive with its printed circuit board facing down.

The drive's user manual, supplied with the drive or downloaded from its manufacturer's website, will provide mounting and installation instructions.

Also note that most quality ATX PC cases allow you to remove the drive bay and screw a drive in it with two short screws on both sides. But, in a tower case, if the drive bay is fixed in it, there will probably be a gap in the plate to which the motherboard is fixed that will allow you to screw in the screws from that side. This is usually a clumsy business, so you should install the drive in the bay when you have removed the plate to install the motherboard. If you have an OEM drive that came without screws, remember to make sure that you only use short ones. Screws that are too long could penetrate the drive and destroy it. If you purchased a PC case it will have come with a container full of different types of screws and the stand-offs on which the motherboard is mounted.

When installing a boot drive that contains the operating system (Windows, Linux, etc.), you get a 40-conductor ribbon cable the correct way round by attaching the side of the ribbon cable that has the red line running down its length to Pin 1 of the Primary IDE Channel, which is illustrated in the motherboard's manual. The side of the cable with the red line along its length is then attached to the drive itself on the side of the drive that is closest to the power supply connection. - See the images above, one of which is a drawing, that illustrate this.

80-conductor ribbon cables are installed according to a colour code. A connector (usually blue) is always attached to the motherboard and the opposite end connector (usually black) is connected to the master hard drive, with the middle connector used for a slave drive.

Below is a diagram from an MSI motherboard manual showing the location of the two IDE channels on the motherboard. The figure 1 shows where Pin 1 is located on each channel. This motherboard was designed to support ATA 33 hard drives, and so comes with the 40-conductor ATA 33 ribbon cables.

You can download the manuals for the latest MSI motherboards free of charge from http://www.msi.com.tw/.

Showing where the two IDE channels are on a typical ATX motherboard

To read an article on recommended IDE device configurations that discusses which drives should be installed on which IDE channels for the best performance, visit -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confRecommendations-c.html

Reminder - If you are using 40-conductor ATA 33 IDE cables, as long as the correct side with the red line down its length is connected to Pin 1 on the motherboard, and the red line on the cable is the side closest to the power supply plug on the drive, it does not matter which end is connected to the drive, or which end is connected to the motherboard or PCI adapter card. But if you are using 80-conductor IDE cables (for ATA 66 / 100 / 133 hard drives), and you have not enabled the Cable Select option, you must also connect the end with the blue plug to the motherboard, and the master drive must be attached to the other end - which is black - and a slave drive must be attached to the middle connector - which is grey. - You cannot attach a master drive to the middle connector. You can use an 80-conductor cable with an ATA 33 hard drive, but you cannot use a 40-conductor ATA 33 cable with drives running in ATA 66 and higher modes of operation.

As I mentioned earlier, there are two types of IDE ribbon cable.

The earlier type of ribbon cable is used on ATA hard drives running ATA (UDMA) 33 and earlier ATA modes. This cable has 40 conductors in the ribbon. But hard drives using the ATA (UDMA) 66/100/133 modes of operation require the new cables that have 80 conductors in the ribbon, 40 of which are used to shield the others from electromagnetic interference.

Note that all computers will have come with the 80-conductor ribbon or round cables, or with an SATA cable if an SATA drive is installed.

Cable Select support

As long as both of the IDE channels are enabled in the BIOS, and all of the other IDE settings in the BIOS are set to Auto, which they should be, you should not need to configure anything else. The drive will begin operating as soon as the system, which has at the very least RAM module(s) and a video/graphics card installed, is powered up.

If you have two drives installed on a cable, one has to be configured as the master (M), and the other has to be configured as the slave (S). If you have two hard drives on the same cable, they will both work in the same ATA data transfer mode as the slowest drive.

If you are using the 80-conductor ATA 66 cable that allows the Cable Select (CS) option on the drive to determine its status by its position on the cable, you obviously cannot place any drive on any connector as with the master-slave option, because it is the drive's position on the cable that configures it.

It is possible to have a CD or DVD drive set as master on the Secondary IDE Channel, with a hard drive on the same cable set as the slave. If you only have one CD or DVD drive, it is best not to have it on the same cable as the boot hard drive on the obligatory Primary IDE Channel.

To read an article on recommended IDE device configurations that discusses which drives should be installed on which IDE channels for the best performance, visit -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confRecommendations-c.html

All 80-conductor IDE cables meet the ATA specifications and hence support the Cable Select feature automatically.

Visit this discussion of cable select for more information -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_CS.htm

If you need to see how an IDE hard drive is installed, view this video:

How to Install Internal Hard Drives : How to Install an IDE Hard Drive [Video] -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OMTOgt3UiB4

Further information on installing IDE (PATA) hard disk drives

For more information on IDE cables visit these two sections of the PC Guide site. -

Standard (40-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_Cable.htm

Ultra DMA (80-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables -

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html

And here are pages on other sites with tutorials on how to install IDE ATA hard drives. -

http://www.informationweek.com/LP/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181502411

http://www.harddriveupgrade.com/

http://www.thepc.info/harddrive_upgrade.html

How to install an SATA hard drive

Installing an SATA hard drive is the simplest of all of the installations that requires no configuration of the drive itself unless you have to change a jumper on the drive to enable SATA 300 mode for an SATA 3.0 Gbit/s (SATA 300) drive. Unless a PCI adapter card is used, it just involves connecting the drive to the motherboard with a single SATA cable (that cannot accommodate another drive), and connecting a power cable from the power supply unit to the drive's power connector. More information on SATA drives is provided a little further down on this page.

Note that if your PC has an elderly motherboard that only supports the original SATA 1.5 Gbit/s (SATA 150) standard, an SATA 3.0 Gbit/s (SATA 300) drive, which has a theoretical data transfer speed of 300MB/s, will work at the slower SATA 150 150MB/s data transfer speed. However, to do so, some SATA 300 drives require a jumper on the back of the drive to be set.

The jumper, which will be stored on inactive pins at the back of the drive, will have to be placed across two pins that will be indicated by a diagram on the drive. Setting the jumper makes it possible for the drive to operate at the slower speed. You can consult your PC's or its motherboard's user manual to find out if it supports SATA 150 or SATA 300. If your PC only supports SATA 150 and you have an SATA 300 drive, look for a diagram on the drive that shows you how to set its SATA jumper. Drives differ in their approach from manufacturer to manufacturer. The following is an extract from the manual of an MSI K9A2 Platinum (AMD Socket AM2+) motherboard showing the jumper setting to enable SATA II (SATA 300) mode on a Western Digital hard drive.

Instructions in an MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard on how to enable SATA II mode on a Western Digital hard drive

Some hard-disk-drive manufacturers, such as Western Digital, use a proprietary SATA cable that locks to the drive. Western Digital calls its SATA cable SecureConnect. The end of the cable that connects to the drive has a special secure connector. Read this guide to see a drawing of the cable.

Western Digital Serial Hard Drive Installation Guide -

http://www.wdc.com/en/library/sata/2779-001006.pdf

The download is in the form of a PDF file, which requires the free Adobe Acrobat PDF reader. Here is a useful extract from it:

"Q: Why does Windows recognize the drive as "SCSI" when it is Serial ATA? A: Most third party controller cards and RAID adapters are recognized as a SCSI device under Device Manager. This is normal and will not affect your drive or system performance. Q: How do I verify if my Serial ATA drive is recognized by my system? A: Right-click on the My Computer icon, select Properties, left-click on the Hardware tab, and click on Device Manager in the window. Double-click on Disk Drives. Your new Western Digital Serial ATA drive should be listed as a "SCSI Disk Device" or "Serial ATA Disk Device." If not, make sure that all cables are securely attached and that your system BIOS has been properly configured."

The guide provides infromation on how to get the BIOS to recognise an SATA hard drive, and information on how to diagnose problems, partition and format the drive, and how to transfer data from an old drive to the new SATA drive.

Here is a Seagate SATA installation guide: How To Install and Troubleshoot Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Drives.

If you want to see an SATA hard drive installed, watch this video:

How to Install Internal Hard Drives : How to Connect Serial ATA Hard Drives -

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kCgFYNLzn18

Windows XP: Installing the device drivers for a boot SATA drive

SATA hard disk drives have only become available fairly recently, so Windows 98, 2000, and XP won't have the drivers for them. If you are installing an SATA drive on a system that already boots from an IDE ATA hard drive, you can obtain the driver file and point Windows to the file's location when Windows asks for it on the first boot after such a drive has been installed. But if you're installing a bare SATA drive on a new motherboard, then you have to do the following:

1. - Read the motherboard's manual, which can be downloaded from the motherboard's site if you don't have one. There will probably be a jumper that has to be enabled before the SATA controller can be used. The manual will tell you where to find the jumper on the motherboard and how to enable it.

2. - Download the SATA driver file from the motherboard's site.

3. - Copy the driver file to a floppy disk. With the SATA drive mounted in the case, connect the keyed SATA cable to the drive and the motherboard, connect a power cable from the power supply unit (PSU) to the back of the drive, and set the boot order in the BIOS to boot from CD-ROM and then SCSI. Motherboard manufacturers usually use the SCSI option in the boot order for SATA drives. The motherboard's manual will tell you what the boot order setting has to be.

Install Windows XP. Windows will detect the new drive. Press the F6 key when Windows asks you to do so, and then allow Windows to install the SATA drivers from the floppy disk. You can now install Windows, which will allow you to partition/format the drive/drive partitions as required.

If you have a laptop or desktop PC that does not have a floppy disk drive, read the following article that provides a workaround.

Install Windows XP on SATA without a Floppy (F6) -

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Install-Windows-XP-On-SATA...

You can use a slipsteamed Windows XP installation disc to install SATA drivers if your PC doesn't have a floppy disk drive.

There is plenty of information and tutorials on slipsteaming Windows XP/Vista (creating an installation disc that contains the available Service Packs, drivers, etc.

If you are creating a slipsteamed Windows XP installation disc and you want to add the SATA drivers to it so that they are installed when Windows XP itself is installed or reinstalled without having to press the F6 key when asked to and then install them from a floppy disk, note well that you have to add the 'Text Mode' drivers, because the Plug and Play (PnP) drivers that are installed on an existing installation of Windows XP at startup won't work.

Visit this article: Making and Customizing an Unattended Windows Install CD. It tells you how to obtain the correct drivers.

Windows Vista: Installing the device drivers for a boot SATA drive

Unlike with Windows XP, which requires a floppy disk containing the SATA device drivers to be used at system startup, if the BIOS setup program recognises an SATA hard disk drive as the boot drive, Windows Vista should be able to install its device drivers during its setup installation procedure. If Vista asks for the drivers, it allows the user to search through all of a computer's storage devices for them, including a USB flash drive, not just the floppy disk drive, as is the case with Windows XP.

Installing an SATA hard drive when an IDE hard drive is installed

If you have one or more IDE hard drives installed, you should have any SATA drive you install as the boot drive, because an SATA drive is faster than an IDE drive, and, having such a thin cable, it doesn't impede the air circulation inside the PC's case. You might not be able to make an SATA drive the boot drive unless you remove the IDE drive(s). You can then install the SATA drive, install Windows or Linux and after that reinstall the IDE drive(s). You can transfer the system from an IDE drive by creating a master image of it with a program such as Norton Ghost, burn the image to a DVD, and restore it to the new SATA hard drive.

A dual-boot or multi-boot system consisting of SATA and IDE drives

The ability of a system to dual-boot or multi-boot different versions of Windows, or Windows and another operating system such as Linux that are installed on a mixture of IDE and SATA hard drives depends on the motherboard chipset and its drivers. Most recent motherboards allow booting an operating system from both channels, but in older motherboards you have to use either the SATA channel (bus) or the IDE channel, not both.

For example, with an Intel 925xe chipset from 2004, it's possible to set the device boot order in the BIOS, or choose from a boot menu which device to boot from. You can choose to boot from IDE, SATA, SATA RAID, or USB hard drives without having to switch or unplug drives. Of course, you have to be very careful when installing programs to different drives because the drive letters change. Windows rearranges the drive letters of the drives because the boot drive is the C: drive, so if one drive was the C: drive and you make another drive the boot drive, it becomes the C: drive and the other drive is given another drive letter.

Looking ahead to Intel's 925XE chipset and FSB1066 -

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/looking-ahead-to-intel,review-1006.html

External SATA (eSATA) technology

"eSATA - Initially SATA was designed as an internal or inside-the-box interface technology, bringing improved performance and new features to internal PC or consumer storage. Creative designers quickly realized the innovative interface could reliably be expanded outside the PC, bringing the same performance and features to external storage needs instead of relying on USB or 1394 interfaces. Called external SATA or eSATA, customers can now utilize shielded cable lengths up to 2 meters outside the PC to take advantage of the benefits the SATA interface brings to storage. SATA is now out of the box as an external standard, with specifically defined cables, connectors, and signal requirements released as new standards in mid-2004. eSATA provides more performance than existing solutions and is hot pluggable." -

http://www.sata-io.org/esata.asp

More detailed information on eSATA is provided in the Disk Drives section of this site. To find it, enter eSata in the Google site-search box at the top of this page.

Hard drives: Partition and format

Click here! to go directly to information on how to partition and format a hard disk drive on Page 6 of this article. Use your browser's Back button to return to this point on this page.

Serial ATA (SATA) hard disk drives

The connection limitations of IDE ATA (parallel ATA/PATA), with its system of master and slave drives, is not longer applied to serial ATA (SATA) drives.

Serial ATA uses a single cable per drive.

You cannot attach more than one drive to a cable. While it is no longer necessary to configure the drive using jumpers, there may be a jumper setting that can reduce the capacity of the drive for motherboards that only support a certain size of drive.

The image below shows cables used to connect an SATA hard disk drive to the motherboard.

The cables used to connect an SATA hard drive to the motherboard

The installation is simplicity itself - just attach the keyed serial cable to the drive and the motherboard, and attach a power connector from the computer's power-supply unit to the drive. The cable is keyed so that one end can only connect to the motherboard and the other end to the drive, so it can't be install the wrong way round. The image below shows the connection points on a motherboard for four SATA hard drives.

The connection points for four SATA hard disk drives on a motherboard

New-style Serial ATA (SATA) power supply units

The new ATX12V 2.0 power supply units have SATA power cables coming directly from them.

These power supply units have new Serial ATA power-line connectors for both hard-disk and optical (CD/DVD) drives.

For the time being, hard disk drives capable of using the new power cable will also have the standard four-pin power socket shown on the image of an IDE drive earlier in this article. However, a conversion cable will always be available so that an old-style ATX 1.3 power supply can be used with a new Serial ATA hard drive.

See the image of two SATA adapter cables below. The white four-pin connector fits into a power-cable connector from the standard ATX power supply unit and the black plug fits into the SATA hard disk drive (or the optical SATA CD/DVD drives that are also available).

SATA drive power cables that connect to the PSU (white plug) and the SATA drive (black plug)

Note that if your PC has an elderly motherboard that only supports the original SATA 1.5 Gbit/s (SATA 150) standard, a SATA 3.0 Gbit/s (SATA 300) drive, which has a theoretical data transfer speed of 300MB/s, will work at the slower SATA 150MB/s data transfer speed. However, to do so, some SATA 300 drives require a jumper on the back of the drive to be set. The jumper, which will be stored on inactive pins at the back of the drive, will have to be placed across two pins that will be indicated by a diagram on the drive. Setting the jumper makes it possible for the drive to operate at the slower speed. You can consult your PC's or its motherboard's user manual to find out if it supports SATA 150 or SATA 300. If your PC only supports SATA 150 and you have an SATA 300 drive, look for a diagram on the drive that shows you how to set its SATA jumper.

Note that the kind of SATA adapter shown above does not provide a +3.3V connection, but some new SATA hard disk drives require this voltage. If so, only one of the new ATX12V 2.0 power supply units can provide it. If you have such a drive and an old-style power supply, you will have to buy a new-style power supply. You can download the user manual for any make and model of hard drive from its manufacturer's site. It will provide you with the power requirements of a particular model. ATX12V 2.0 is the new power supply standard that has replaced the ATX 1.3 standard. The 3.3V SATA connector, shown in the image below, is available in straight and angled versions (the plug is straight or angled), and comes directly from the ATX12V 2.0 power supply unit so that a conversion cable of the kind shown above is not used.

SATA hard disk drive power cables that come directly from a new ATX12V 2.0 power supply unit

SATA data cables

SATA 1.5 Gbit/s (SATA 150), SATA 3.0 Gbit/s (SATA 300), and SAS all use the same data cables, so if you see a data cable labelled as a SATA II 300 cable, you can use it with an SATA 150 drive and vice versa. An SATA 300 cable might have a redesigned plug on the end to prevent it from coming off the drive. If you already have the SATA 150 cable, and want to reuse it for a SATA 300 drive, it will work.

Remember that the difference between SATA 150 and SATA 300 is the speed of the serial interface, not the speed of the drive. The latest SATA 300 hard drives are barely reaching the limits of the IDE ATA 100 standard, and can't come close to filling the bandwidth available for SATA 150/SATA 300. Therefore, it's a waste of money buying a SATA 300 hard drive, because a similar model SATA 150 drive should be just as fast.

SATA II (for SATA 3.0 Gbit/s) is a marketing ploy. In fact, the SATA-IO board says that there are no SATA II devices and that the term SATA 300 should never be used to describe a product. It would be a similar situation to building a road where the posted speed limit is 700 MPH, but the existing cars can't go over 275 MPH. Who cares if the SATA 300 bandwidth is 3.0Gbps if the drives can't even use the full IDE ATA 100 bandwidth?

Serial ATA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA

Data rate units - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_rate_units

Serial ATA - a site devoted to the new IDE drive standard -

http://www.serialata.org/

Serial ATA Adapters and Cables - a US site -

http://www.xoxide.com/seataad.html

SATA Cables Internal and External - a US site -

http://cooldrives.stores.yahoo.net/sata-cables.html

Remember that all of the major hard-drive manufacturer's provide user manuals for their drives from their websites that contain illustrated installation information.

For more detailed information on SATA hard disk drives visit the IDE, SATA, SCSI/SAS Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and SSD (Solid State) Drives section of this site.

Hard disk drive problems - SATA hard drives

There are several Q&As that discuss installation and other problems to do with SATA hard drives on the Hard Disk Drive Problems pages on this site. Look on Page 2 and Page 3.

Click here! to go directly to information about the new SATA hard disk drives on the Disk Drives pages of this site.

Motherboard RAID support

If the PC you are building has a motherboard that has a RAID controller, it allows two or more hard disk drives to be configured in a number of RAID arrays, which can use the drives together in a number of ways, such as mirroring the contents of the boot drive to a secondary drive and running several drives as if they were just one drive.

More detailed information on RAID is provided on this site. To find it, enter raid in the Google site-search box at the top of this page.

IDE/ATAPI Drives and Direct Memory Access (DMA)

Note that the following information on DMA only applies to IDE ATA hard drives and IDE ATAPI CD/DVD drives. For SATA drives SATA DMA is a setting that can be enabled or disabled in the BIOS setup program, not in Windows. If you have purchased a PC that has SATA drives, it will have been enabled by default, but you will probably have to enabled it for a new motherboard that supports both IDE ATA and SATA drives. Consult the motherboard's user manual for motherboard-specific information.

In a Windows 95/98/Me system, the DMA option is enabled or disabled by clicking the device's name in the Windows Device Manager (under the headings +Disk drives and +CDROM). Click the + sign to reveal the drives. Under the Settings tab you will find a checkbox called DMA. Use your mouse to put a tick in it and reboot to enable the setting. All of the latest drives will support DMA, so make sure that it is enabled, because, as it allows the drives to bypass the processor and have direct access to the RAM, it improves the system performance significantly.

From a system performance point of view, it important to make sure that you enable DMA properly, which is not as straightforward as you might think. You can simply enable DMA for a particular drive in the Device Manager, but there is a DMA setting in the registry too. There are several articles on this subject in Microsoft Knowledge Base on this subject.

The following article on Microsoft's site explains DMA in Windows XP.

DMA Mode for ATA/ATAPI Devices in Windows XP -

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/storage/IDE-DMA.mspx

Note that the above article does not apply to SATA drives.

How do I enable DMA mode on CD and DVD burner drives? -

"DMA (Direct memory access) mode is a high performance mode for transferring data to and from devices, in particular, to CD and DVD burner devices. The burner devices can function in either DMA or PIO modes. DMA mode allows the processor to transfer large pieces of data with very little software overhead - therefore requiring low CPU utilization. In this mode, high speed burning can be performed in background with other programs running. PIO mode requires CPU processing for every few bytes sent to the device, so that CPU utilization becomes very high when trying to burn at high speeds." -

http://www.onthegosoft.com/dma_setting_nt.htm

Windows [Vista] Help and How-to - Turn Direct Memory Access (DMA) on or off -

"Direct memory access (DMA) is usually turned on by default for devices such as hard disks and CD or DVD drives that support DMA. However, you might need to turn on DMA manually if the device was improperly installed or if a system error occurred." -

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-NZ/Help/...mspx

If you have an old hard drive that does not support DMA (Direct Memory Access), you should not enable it for a drive on the same cable - a hard drive or CD drive - that does support it - unless the motherboard's chipset and IDE drivers support independent timing, because you are likely to experience problems that might be very difficult to rectify.

For example, if you have an elderly motherboard that only supports the earlier PIO modes of operation instead of the UDMA modes required for the use of DMA, do not enable the DMA option for any hard disk drive - even if the drive itself is a UDMA drive that supports DMA. - If the motherboard does not support the DMA modes of operation, you cannot use them for any drive - even if the drive itself supports DMA.

The modes of operation will be given in the motherboard's user manual.

But if you have a UDMA2 (ATA 33) hard disk drive, or higher, which supports DMA, and which is also running on a motherboard that supports DMA, and if the motherboard's chipset supports independent timing, which all relatively new motherboards do, you will be able to install a drive that does not support DMA (only supports the PIO modes of operation) on the same cable, and have DMA enabled for the drive that supports it. But you should not enable DMA for the PIO-mode drive that does not support DMA.

You probably won't be able to find out if your motherboard chipset supports independent timing for drives working in different modes on the same cable. However, if you enable DMA for a hard drive that supports it while a hard drive that only supports the earlier PIO modes of operation is sharing the same cable, in a Windows 95/98/Me system, check the System Properties by clicking the System icon in the Control Panel.

If you see a message such as this under the Performance tab: - "Drive 1 is using MS DOS compatibility mode file system" - then the DMA option should not have been enabled.

Using MS DOS compatibility mode slows the system down. You can usually rectify the situation by clicking on the drive's name in the Device Manager (click the + next to the Disk drives heading), and then removing the tick in the DMA check box. You will have to reboot for the change to take affect. If the system is using its proper Windows mode of operation, the message, "Your system is configured for optimal performance" will show on the Performance tab of System Properties instead of the warning that Windows is using MS DOS compatibility mode.

The use of DMA became available with UDMA2 (ATA 33) hard disk drives, which support busmaster IDE drivers. If you have an earlier hard disk drive that supports only the PIO modes of operation up to PIO 4, you should not enable the DMA option for that drive, because it will not be able to use a busmaster IDE driver, and as such will cause problems that will probably involve having to boot in Safe mode to disable the DMA setting, or remove the IDE busmaster drivers in order to reinstall the proper ones.

IDE hard disk drives have reached UDMA5 (ATA 133). UDMA2 = ATA 33 - UDMA3 = ATA 66 - UDMA4 = ATA 100 - UDMA5 = ATA 133.

Any UDMA2 (ATA 33) or higher IDE hard disk drive will support DMA - as long as it is also running on a motherboard that supports the UDMA2 (ATA 33) or higher modes of operation.

You can purchase PCI cards that allow extra IDE drives to be fitted over and above the four that can be fitted to most motherboards. Such expansion cards make use of their own BIOS to configure the extra drives. Promise is the leading manufacturer of such cards.

CD/DVD/Floppy Disk Drives

How to install CD/DVD/Blu-ray optical drives

CD, DVD and Blu-ray drives (disc readers and disc readers/writers) are called optical drives because they use laser technology (lasers use beams of light). First came CD drives, followed by DVD drives, followed by Blu-ray drives, which is the latest standard. It won the high-definition (HD) war with Toshiba's HD DVD standard, which has ceased to exist. Blu-ray is developed by Sony.

Like hard disk drives, optical drives use the IDE ATA or the SATA interface to connect to a desktop or laptop PC's motherboard.

An IDE (ATAPI) CD or DVD drive is connected (often appropriately configured by a jumper on the drive itself as master or slave drive) to one of the free connectors of the two IDE cables connected to the Primary and Secondary IDE Channels on the motherboard. (Some motherboards now only provide a single IDE connector, because most new hard disk drives now use the SATA interface.) As with a hard drive, a power cable from the power supply unit with the appropriate connector (a standard four-pin power connector for an IDE drive and an SATA connector for an SATA drive) has to be attached to the drive's power socket.

Note that adapters are available that convert a standard 4-pin power connector from the power supply unit into an SATA power connector that connects to an SATA drive's power connector.

An SATA CD/DVD drive is connected to an SATA connector on the PC's motherboard. IDE and SATA hard disk drives were dealt with above.

If you need to know where to connect an IDE or SATA CD/DVD drive, consult the motherboard's user manual. If you don't have a copy of the manual, identify the make/model of the motherboard with a utility such as the free CPU-Z and use Google to search its manufacturer's site for the model involved. You should be able to download a user manual for it in the PDF format, which requires a reader, such as the free Adobe Reader.

A CD/DVD or Blu-ray drive has to be placed in a 5.25-inch bay in the front of the case so that its face shows through one of the outlets that are the same size as the drive. In a new PC case, you will probably have to remove a removable metal cover that is punched out and can't put back, and a plastic cover in the front of the case that can be replaced if the drive is removed. With some cases both of these covers can be replaced.

In order to provide sound, CD/DVD and Blu-ray drives are connected to the a PC's sound card or motherboard with an integrated sound chip by a special single-wire connector. If the sound card is built into the motherboard, this connector will be connected to the motherboard as illustrated in its user manual. If you don't have a user manual for the motherboard in your computer you should be able to download a copy from its manufacturer's site, which you can locate by entering the manufacturer's name in a search engine. A Google search box has been provided at the top of this page. Enable its Web radio button if you want to search the web.

Note that if you install or replace a CD/DVD/Blu-ray burner, make sure your new one is very solidly mounted. That is, don't use just two screws, use as many as you reasonably can on both sides of the drive, and even get some tiny lock washers at a hardware store and use them to make the drive less prone to vibrations. Vibrations have a significant negative effect on a CD/DVD burner compared to the effect they have on most other PC devices. The levels of vibrations that a hard drive will ignore will eventually cause your CD/DVD/Blu-ray burner's lens to go off axis. And since CD/DVD/Blu-ray burners are more expensive to repair than replace you will probably have to replace your burner before its time if you ignore this aspect of the installation.

My installation descriptions should be sufficient, but if you need to see an illustrated guide on installing CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives, visit:

Installing An Optical Drive Guide -

http://static.compusa.com/html/learn-installing-optical-drives.html

It is advisable to buy a CD-R/RW or DVD-R/RW drive instead of just a CD-ROM drive, because you can use it to play ordinary CDs (audio and data), and you can also use it to record ('burn') CD-R/DVD-R or CD-RW/DVD-RW discs. For instance, CD-R and DV-R/DVD+R disks are very cheap these days, especially when bought in bulk. You could use them to make regular back-up copies of your whole system so that it can easily be restored in the event of a wipe out.

Currently, CD-RW discs can be rewritten approximately a 1,000 times. A DVD+RW or a DVD-RW disc is very similar to a CD-RW disc with regard to the number of times that it can be rewritten. However, as with CD-RW discs, in practice the number of times will probably be much higher and vary between the brand-name makes of disc. Blu-ray rewritable discs (Blu-ray Disc Rewritable discs) are designated by BD-RE (not BD-RW in the way that CD-RW and DVD-RW/DVD+RW are used for the CD/DVD rewritable standards). The BD-RE specifications require that the discs, at minimum, should be rewritable at least 1,000 times. However, different materials, designs, and fabrications may allow a greater number of rewrites. Some, but not all of the BD-RE disc manufacturers, specify that their discs are capable of 10,000 or more rewrites.

BD-R (write-once) and BD-RE (multiple write) discs can store a huge 25GB of data on a single-layer disc and 50GB on a dual-layer disc, but they are much more expensive than the equivalent recordable CD/DVD discs. Click here! to find out what the latest prices are on amazon.co.uk.

Installing CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive device drivers and disc-burning software

Windows XP/Vista will probably install the device drivers itself for a CD/DVD/Blu-ray burner/drive, but if it hasn't got the drivers, it will ask you to supply them from a disc or from a download in a folder. If Windows installs the drivers itself, you should visit the drive maufacturer's website for the latest drivers, because those in the Windows driver library will be old drivers. You might also be able to find an update for the drive's firmware. Just make sure that the firmware update is for the exact make/model of drive, because you can render a drive unusable by installing the wrong firmware.

Enter a suitable search term in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled) to find more information on optical-drive firmware. For a dvd drive, you could try: dvd drive firmware.

New PCs and boxed CD/DVD/Blu-ray writers purchased from a retail store usually come with the disc-burning software required to use them, or you can download free alternatives from the Internet from sites such as:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.tucows.com/

http://www.zdnet.com/

Visit the Disk Drives section of this site for detailed information on these optical drives.

Visit http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/ if you want access to another good site with build-your-own-pc information. Each such site has its own method of treating the subject and none of them provides all of the available information on it, so it is worthwhile finding out what is available on several of them. You can find others by entering build your own pc in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).

How to install CD/DVD/Blu-ray optical drives

Like hard disk drives, optical drives use the IDE ATA or the SATA interface to connect to a desktop or laptop PC's motherboard.

Note that adapters are available that convert a standard 4-pin power connector from the power supply unit into an SATA power connector that connects to an SATA drive's power connector.

An SATA CD/DVD drive is connected to an SATA connector on the PC's motherboard. IDE and SATA hard disk drives were dealt with above.

In order to provide sound, CD/DVD and Blu-ray drives are connected to the a PC's sound card or motherboard with an integrated sound chip by a special single-wire connector. If the sound card is built into the motherboard, this connector will be connected to the motherboard as illustrated in its user manual. If you don't have a user manual for the motherboard in your computer you should be able to download a copy from its manufacturer's site, which you can locate by entering the manufacturer's name in a search engine. A Google search box has been provided at the top of this page. Enable its Web radio button if you want to search the web.

My installation descriptions should be sufficient, but if you need to see an illustrated guide on installing CD/DVD/Blu-ray drives, visit:

Installing An Optical Drive Guide -

http://static.compusa.com/html/learn-installing-optical-drives.html

Installing CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive device drivers and disc-burning software

http://www.majorgeeks.com/

http://www.filehippo.com/

http://www.tucows.com/

http://www.zdnet.com/

Visit the Disk Drives section of this site for detailed information on these optical drives.

Visit http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/ if you want access to another good site with build-your-own-pc information. Each such site has its own method of treating the subject and none of them provides all of the available information on it, so it is worthwhile finding out what is available on several of them. You can find others by entering build your own pc in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).

How to install a floppy disk drive (FDD)

A floppy disk drive that uses 1.44MB floppy disks

The image above shows the most common type of internal floppy disk drive installed in a desktop PC. It uses standard 1.44MB floppy disks.

A floppy disk drive (FDD) is installed in much the same way as a hard disk drive, except that it uses one of the small 3.5-inch outlets available in the front of the case instead of an outlet for 5.25-inch bay. The image below shows the front view of an Antec SLK1650 ATX case. You can see the power-on and reset buttons and the two 3.5-inch drive bays for devices such as a floppy disk drive. Above them are three 5.25-inch bays for optical drives (CD/DVD/Blu-ray).

Antec SLK1650 ATX case

Now that the floppy disk drive is well on the way to becoming extinct, some new cases only have a single 3.5-inch bay, because devices such as an internal memory card reader are installed in one. (How to install a memory card reader is dealt with in the next item.)

If the PC case is new, you will have to remove one of the plastic covers in the front of the case, which is about a quarter of the size of one the covers placed over the CD/DVD bays. You may also have to remove a punch-out metal cover.

The drive is inserted into the bay so that its face shows at the front of the case. It is screwed into the 3.5-inch bay with four screws. Most cases come with all the screws required to install the drives. To do that you will probably have to remove both sides of the case if the bay itself is not removable.

The FDD has a special ribbon cable that can be identified by the twist in a couple of its strands in the middle of the cable near one end. - See the images of one below.

A floppy disk drive ribbon cable

A floppy disk drive data table showing the red line down one side of its length

The end that has this twist closest to it is attached to the drive, and the other end is attached to the FDD Channel on the motherboard. The side of the ribbon cable with the red line down its length is connected to Pin 1 on the motherboard, which should be indicated as such on the board itself or in the motherboard's user manual. You can clearly see the red line along the top of the cable in the close-up image of the cable.

Connecting a floppy-drive cable causes more probems than any other cable. This is mainly because not many floppy cables have a notch on the connector that fits into the gap in the socket on drive, providing a key-type installation, so there is nothing to prevent plugging the cable in the wrong way round.

Moreover, there is also no consistency in the arrangement of the two connectors at the back of the drive. With an IDE ATA hard disk drive, Pin 1 on the hard drive is on the side of the socket nearest the power socket, but that is not necessarily the case with a floppy drive.

If there is no indication on the motherboard or on the floppy drive where Pin 1 is, the socket on the drive has a missing pin - Pin 5 - which is two positions away from Pin 1.

The power supply provides a special small plug that can only connect to a floppy disk drive.

Note that if a hard drive's LED light on the front of the case, or the LED light on the FDD remain lit when the PC is first switched on, this usually means that the FDD cable is the wrong way round - that the side of the cable without the red line along its length is connected to Pin 1 on the motherboard.

Having the cables the wrong way round in that way will do no harm, but having the hard-drive and floppy-drive cables not properly attached to the drive or to the motherboard has been known to render the drive permanently useless. So make sure that the plugs are pushed all the way into their sockets on the motherboard and the drive. They can easily be left half connected.

The pins in the data-cable connector can easily be bent if the connector isn't fitted precisely over them so that the holes in it match the pins. If one or more pins are bent, the drive won't work, so if that is the case check the pins. If one or more are bent, use a pair of tweezers to make them staight.

Because it is difficult to see if you are connecting the floppy drive correctly when the drive is installed in the case, I attach the ribbon cable to the drive first and then feed the cable through the floppy drive's opening and then connect the cable to the motherboard. The power cable is easy to connect.

If Windows XP/Vista is already installed it will detect and install the floppy drive's device driver. If you install the floppy drive during the building process and the install Windows, it will install the driver automatically. Floppy disk drives use a standard Windows driver.

It is not necessary to install and connect the parallel, serial, and game ports with an ATX motherboard (as is the case with an older AT motherboard that does not have these ports built into it, so they are installed as brackets that connect to the motherboard), because these ports are built into an ATX motherboard. If you are installing an ancient AT motherboard, its manual will illustrate where to connect these ports on the board.

Note that you should not leave unused CD/DVD/FDD drive bays in the front of the case - or the expansion card outlets at the back of the case - uncovered, because the gaps weaken the extraction of hot air by the PSU and case fan.

If you have an external USB floppy disk drive of the kind shown in the image below, it will be connected to a USB port on the motherboard's ports panel at the back of the case. The drive obtains its power via the USB cable.

An external USB floppy disk drive

The following MS Knowledge Base article deals with the problem of installing SATA drive device drivers, which require installation from a FDD after pressing the F8 key during the Windows XP installation process. This problem does not occur with Windows Vista, because Vista installs SATA drivers during the installation process.

A connected USB floppy disk drive does not work when you press F6 to install mass storage drivers during the Windows XP installation process -

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/916196

More information...

For more information on IDE (ATA/UDMA) and SCSI hard disk drives, and IDE CD/DVD drives, visit the Disk Drives and Technical Stuff pages on this site.

How to install an external and an internal memory card reader

Click here! to go to information on this site on how to install external and internal memory card readers.

USB Flash Drives

Click here! to go to information on this site on USB Flash Drives

Google searches

If my descriptions are not clear enough for you, you'll be able to find many sites offering illustrated information on how to install computer components by entering a phrase such as "install a xxxx" (where xxxx stands for the device, such as RAM, hard disk drive, etc.) in the Google search box at the top of this page (with its Web radio button enabled).

Page 1a/1b - The Introduction, the Case & the PSU	Page 4a/4b/4c/4d - Expansion Cards & Peripherals
Page 2a/2b - The Motherboard, Processor & RAM	Page 5a/5b - The Dial-Up Modem
Page 3 - The Disk Drives	Page 6 - The Assembly & Installing Windows