Replacing Computer DVD Or CD-Rom Drives

Do you need a new DVD or CD-Rom Drive in your Computer?

Do you know how to add or replace the drives?

In this article you'll learn how to add or replace CD or DVD drives.

CD-ROM drives are currently more popular simply because the CD-ROM Disks themselves (which stands for Compact Disk Read Only Memory) hold much more data than floppy disks.
DVD (which stands for Digital Versatile Disk) holds even more data.
Let's take a look.

Floppy Disks Hold 1.44 - 2 Megabytes of data.

CD-ROM Disks hold 650 - 680 Megabytes of data.

DVD-Rom Disks hold over 7 Gigabytes of data.

DVD-RW disks hold 4.7 Gigabytes of data.

As you can see the differences are astounding.

The other difference is that unlike Floppy Disks, which are magnetic and are read by magnetic heads, CD-ROM and DVD Disks are optical and are unaffected by any stray magnetism.
In fact, since the disks are read by a laser beam and make no physical contact with the player, CD and DVD DISKS can last a lifetime if properly cared for.

There are 2 different types of CD-ROM drives:

SCSI, which will need a SCSI interface card and the more popular IDE drives.

The IDE drives connect similar to your IDE Hard Disk Drive with the exception being the audio cable.

Open your computer tower case.

Locate a free multicolored power supply cable.

Connect the wider flat ribbon cable to the secondary IDE Hard Drive connector on your motherboard, making sure the dotted colored edge goes to pin # 1.
You can also use an available connector on the cable already connected to your Hard Disk Drive.

Connect the other end of the ribbon cable to the DATA connector on the CD-ROM DRIVE.

If you have a sound card, connect the audio cable to CD Audio In, on the sound card.

Connect the other end of the cable to the Audio Output connector on the CD or DVD Drive.

Remove one of the faceplates on the computer case and slide the drive into an available bay.

Secure it with 4 Phillips screws using a non-magnetic screwdriver only!

Unless your DVD Drive comes in a kit with an interface card you can install it the same way as the CD-ROM Drive.
After you've checked all your connections, close up your computer tower case and install any supplied software.

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