installing CD Writer drive

[gammaray]

I'm just curious to know if the procedures of installing a CD-R or CD-Rw (IDE) is the same as installing the normal CD rom drive. Just insert the drive inside the casing and then connect the IDE cable and the power cable behind the drive? Does it requires any addition steps?

Thanks!!

[Danzego]

Well, if I were you, I would start out by putting your regular CDROM and hard drive on the same IDE line set as Master (HDD) and Slave (CDROM). This way, whether you're burning from another disc or from the hard drive, your burner is always on a seperate line to keep down the number of coasters you're going to burn (and believe me, you will burn some, especially with the first time out on an IDE drive). Make sure that your BIOS is set to auto so that it detects the CDR, then install the burning software, and BLAM!! Ready to go (best case scenario).

[Ziz]

One other thing I noticed after doing a few CD-RW installs at my old job, more often than not, the new drive would try to take over the old CD-ROM drive letter and push your CD-ROM to the next letter up. Trouble is you won't know it until you go to use a disc and the machine tells you it can't find it in the drive! Before you install the RW, go to Device Manager and lock your existing CD drive letter in place (make Start and End drive letter the same thing). Then when you install the RW, it will pick the next letter in line after the CD, or the first letter available between C: and your CD drive.