Cables needed for fitting DVD burner

imsi

I've bought an NEC 3520A to fit to my Dell 3000 alongside the original DVD Rom [very simple according to my mates in pub!]
I don't know if I'm supposed to buy another power supply cable or whether the connections already there can be used [they are marked P2, P3 etc.] and if so does it matter which one?
If anyone can advise I'd be very grateful.
OS is XP 2
Rob

paul8811

you should just have to connect the IDE cable (wide & thin, usually has a pink bit on the side) & a power cable which you should find plenty spare off, the same kind in your current DVD drive

imsi

And it doesn't matter which of the power supply ones I use?

Joe_Bloggs

Open up your case and see how many power cables you have and how long they are. The cables have four wires coloured red,black,black,yellow, often described as molex. You can get connectors that will split a single power cable in two. Check to see if the existing IDE interface cable into the existing drive has a second plug that could fit and reach into an second drive.
J_B.
It does not matter which molex power connectors one you use. If you leave off a power connector and do not disconnect the IDE cable the whole system might not boot!

T4i

Don't forget to configure the 'jumper' on the rear panel of DVD drive. It should have three settings-

cs - cable select
master
slave

Your motherboard will prolly have two IDE channels (primary and secondary) each channel can hold a master and slave device.

Depending how your system is setup at the mo depends on the DVD jumper setting.

imsi

Thanks a lot for the replies.
All seems to be ok

I already had looked up and found plenty of info about the IDE cables and settings but very little about connecting power.
I guess they hadn't allowed for something [or someone ;-)] quite that simple.

Rob

culpepper

If there arent enough connectors, you can buy a Y shaped connector which fits in between one of the existing connectors to add a new one.