Hi there
First off, you can't get a 4 connector cable as the maximum number of drives you can connect to a single cable is 2.
You said you already have one hard disk & one CDROM drive on the cable. I assume that is the only ribbon (IDE) cable in the system, right? (If not, let me know!).
If so, then you should have another IDE port on the motherboard. Look at where the cable connects to the motherboard - it will be a 40 pin rectangular socket. Next to it should be another identical socket.
The two 40 pin IDE sockets are normally labelled something like (IDE 0, IDE 1 or IDE 1, IDE2 or simply 1 & 2 for example)
What you need to do is buy another ribbon cable identical to the one you already have. This can then be connected to the second IDE port & will provide connections for up to 2 more drives (hard drives or CD/DVD drives).
Please be aware of the following :
When you have 2 hard drives & one optical (CD/DVD) drive, the ideal configuration normally is to connect both the hard drives to the same ribbon cable & have the optical drive on the second cable (i.e the second IDE port).
However you decide to arrange the drives though, you should follow the following configuration :
(a)The main hard drive (i.e the one with Windows on) should remain in it's current position i.e as a Master on the primary IDE port. This means it should be connected to the last (end) connector of the ribbon cable.
(b) whichever drive you decide to place on the same cable as the main hard drive - lets assume its the 10GB Western Digital drive - must be jumpered as a slave & connected to the middle connector on the cable.
© With the 10GB WD drive is on the primary IDE port, the CDROM drive must be connected to the secondary IDE port (cable). This should be jumpered as a Master & connected to the end connector on the ribbon cable.
As for the bios, it 'should' automatically detect the drives. If not, then you need to go into the bios & use the 'autodetect' utility if it has one. We can worry about that when we get to it!
**One more important thing to know...**
This applies to both of the ribbon cables : you should notice that the ribbon cables will either be marked with 'Master', 'Slave', 'Mainboard' - written on the actual cable itself AND/OR they will have different colour connectors (normally blue/grey/black). The BLUE connector (or the one marked mainboard if not coloured) MUST be the connector that plugs into the motherboard socket.
Hope this isn't too confusing! Let me know if you have any questions
Edited by Samm, 26 February 2007 - 07:16 PM.