[callmewilson]

I have been trying to install into my friends computer a second optical drive a DVD-RW. He already has a DVD-Rom/CD-RW. Here's what I've done;

1: Installed & screwed the DVD-RW drive into the second case bay below the current drive.
2: Linked a connector strip from the same IDE ribbon cable already linking the other drive so both drives are on the same lead.
3: Connected a spare 4 pin power connector to the DVD-RW drive
4: Booted the PC, both drives LED's flash as they do on power up.
5: Now heres the problem explained below;

The pair of optical drives are now both installed and connected on the same IDE ribbon cable with each using a power connector off the PSU.

Neither of the drives are detetced by the pc on bootup, bios or in windows. I disconnected the DVD-RW leaving the original drive back as it was, on a second pc boot up its all back to normal, for now my friends DVD-Rom/CD-RW is disconnected and the DVD-RW is in use, what I can't seem to do is get both drives working together on 1 IDE cable, 4 hours of tinkering and no luck.

The PC's mainboard doesn't have a spare IDE slot to use the drive on it's own cable, he doesn't use the floppy disk drive so I also tried using the IDE cable from that, original DVD-Rom/CD-RW works this time but no DVD-RW detected.

I did some searching on google and found info about installing a second optical drive and the photo diagrams and instructions was explaining the same ribbon cable can be used, it's the jumper settings/slave thingy I'm confused about.

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!

[Wverb0783]

yes the only thing you have missed is setting the jumpers. on the back of the optical drive, where you plugged in the 4 pin molex ( power) connector, there will be a spot with small pins in two rows. look at the diagram below to see what i mean. Now what you want to do is look at the older (first drive) and make sure the little jumper is covering the 2 pins marked master. make sure that this drive is connected to the very end of the ribbon cable. then look at the new (second drive) and set the jumper to slave. this drive will be connected to the middle connector on the ribbon cable. if you don't know which pins are which, look on top of the drive and there is usually a diagram explaining it.

i wont explain what the cable select is because without knowing which drives you are using you may get more confused. Good Luck, and post back if it all works out.