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The easiest case is that you just bought a new CDROM because the old one stopped working and there happened to be a sale at one of the local office supply stores. Most of the time, the installation does not pose any problem.

The first mandatory step is to unplug your computer. Many of the newer systems have standby power and there is a substantial risk of damaging your PC if it is not completely disconnected from the wall outlet. The next step involves opening up the computer case and removing the screws holding the old drive in the bay and continue to carefully disconnect the power and the ribbon (data) cable from the old drive, as well as the little wire on the far left which is the sound cable fro playing CDs over your sound system. Now the CDROM should slide out easily through the front panel opening.

Mistake #1: Before you took out the CDROM, you forgot to check whether there was still a CD in the drive bay. You might never find your favorite expensive game CD again if it was still stuck in the old drive but don't worry, we'll rescue it later.

Mistake #2: you cannot wait for the new drive being installed and rush it into the empty drive bay. Big mistake, because there are jumpers in the back of the new drive that need to be configured to match the settings of the drive that you just removed. Now that the drive is in the case, you'll have a hard time to even see the jumpers, not to mention that it is almost impossible to change the settings.

Ok, let's do this over again. You take the old drive, set it on top of the new one and look at the back of the two drives. There is always a jumper that shorts 2 of a set of 6 pins. There are the three sets of letters, MA, SL and CS which mean Master, Slave and Cable select. Compare the setting on the old drive and the new one and make sure that you put the jumper into the same position as what you see on the old drive. If the old drive was a master, the new drive will become a master, if the old drive was a slave, so will be the new drive.

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