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.
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.
Configure Hard Drive and CD-ROM