How to Build Your Own PC - Save A Buck And Learn A Lot  9  Chapter 12: Home Video -- “So, You Want to Be the Next Steven Spielberg?”

DVD Formats 1 DVD Software

Often an “I” at the end of a drive model number means “Internal.” And, an “E” at the end of the model number means “external.” Internal drives are usually less expensive. So, unless you really need to move the drive between multiple PCs, you might want to purchase an internal drive and save some money. Many people purchase external drives because they aren’t comfortable opening up their PC. But because you know how to build and upgrade a PC, an internal DVD IDE drive is a great choice.

Internal IDE DVD drives install just like any other IDE drive, such as your CD-RW drive or your computer’s hard drive. At the back of the drive, there will be a jumper to configure the drive as master, slave, or cable select. There will be a molex power connector to power the drive. There will be an IDE ribbon cable to send and receive signals between the drive and the mainboard.

So, once you’ve installed a CD drive, you know everything you need to know to install DVD drives.

Put a DVD drive on the mainboard’s secondary IDE interface. Try to leave the mainboard’s primary IDE interface exclusively for your computer’s hard drive. If you have both a DVD drive and a CD-RW drive, you probably should put both on the secondary IDE interface, before adding a second device to the primary IDE interface. This is because only one device can send and receive signals through the IDE ribbon cable at one time. You don’t want your computer’s main hard drive waiting for the DVD or CD drive to finish using the cable. The PC’s main hard drive should have uninterrupted access to the mainboard.

In addition to internal IDE drives, there is a wide selection of external DVD burners using USB (the Universal Serial Bus) which allows the burner to be easily moved from PC to PC.

DVD Formats 1 DVD Software