Drives; General Installation Guidelines; Connecting Drive Cables - Dell DIMENSION 8400 Manual

Drives

Your computer supports a combination of these devices:
• Up to two hard drives
• One optional floppy drive
• One optional Zip drive
• Up to two CD or DVD drives

General Installation Guidelines

Connect serial ATA hard drives to the system board connectors labeled SATA-0, SATA-1, SATA-2,
or SATA-3. Connect CD/DVD drives to the connector labeled PRI IDE.
When you connect two IDE devices to a single IDE interface cable and configure them for the
cable select setting, the device attached to the last connector on the interface cable is the primary
or the boot device (drive 0), and the device attached to the middle connector on the interface cable
is the secondary device (drive 1). See the drive documentation in your upgrade kit for information
on configuring devices for the cable select setting.

Connecting Drive Cables

When you install a drive, you connect two cables—a DC power cable and a data cable—to the back
of the drive and to the system board. Some drives may also have an audio connector; one end of the
audio cable attaches to the drive connector and the other end attaches to the system board.
Drive Interface Connectors
Serial ATA Connector
interface cable
interface connector
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Removing and Installing Parts