Build Your Own PC
Configure Hard Drive & CD-ROMMay 31, 1999
By David Risley
It's much easier to configure these drives before actually installing them in the case. If you install them first, having enough room to actually set the jumpers can be a problem.
Before doing this, you must decide what type of drives and how many you want in your system. The basic system has one hard drive and one CD-ROM. You may want more than this. In this case, configure the drives to suit your preferences.
In the basic system with one hard drive, make sure the jumper on the back is set to "master". This is usually labeled on the drive itself. Many drives have a setting for "single". This setting tells the drive it is alone on that particular IDE channel. In a one HDD system, use this setting if available. For more information on the master/slave relationship, see IDE Interface.
CD-ROMs are simple to configure. Their jumpers are located in different places on each drive, and are labeled differently, but they are easily found in most cases. Most systems only have one CD-ROM. So, configure this CD-ROM as a master. It is then best to place this drive on the secondary IDE channel instead, as a slave to the Hard Drive.
Jumpers can be set with a pair of needle-nosed pliers. If a particular drive does not need to be jumpered at all, it is best to hang the jumper over one pin. This is the same as being unjumpered, but make sure the jumper is there for future use if necessary.
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