What is proper cabling?

Question

I'm not very good at computers, so please bear with me. My computer won't play any type of disk. For some reason it says that both my CD and DVD drives are not connected to the computer (the drivers are working okay). I opened my computer and both the power supply and the I/O BUS port (at least that is what it says on the disk drive, I don't know if it is called that) are connected. Did something get disconnected, or are the drives faulty. Thanks for your help.

Tomas

Answer

This question was answered on June 15, 2005. Much of the information contained herein may have changed since posting.

First you want to make sure that your CD and DVD are properly connected to the motherboard by its IDE cable. IDE ribbon cables are the cables that connect the drive to the motherboard in your pc. Usually an IDE cable has 3 connectors on the cables the two connectors that are closest together are assigned to the drive and the connector farthest apart is assigned to the motherboard. Like the lines below consider the lines below as the cable:

|==|======|

Also in the back of your drive there are options of Cable select (CS) which allows the cable select what drive is first (master) and last (slave). Sometimes the drive is already assigned when they depart from the manufactory.

Author

Posted by Johanna of Katharine Gibbs School - New York on June 15, 2005