Does anyone know of any good guides/tips for working inside the computer.. especially when it comes to installing a new hard drive and cd-rom drive?

And I guess while I'm there... other question(s):
- Do the hard drive and cd-rom have to match with motherboard? Or can I just stick a random Maxtor HD and LG CD Burner and it'll work.. providing I did the installations correctly?

Sorry.. I'm a total newb when it comes to hardware upgrading..

Many thanks in advance!

There's an actual Hardware forum here @Computing.Net

At any rate - assuming you intend to install a standard IDE CD-ROM - just hook it up. Likewise for IDE hard drives, although very large drives may not be properly recognized, depending on the age of the computer, due to BIOS limitations.

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ah man... sorry! i didn't even notice it.

thank you for the tip at least.

and just one more thing.. would i have to buy any additional plugs or anything like that? or would that all come with the hard drive?

That's alright - it's just that the ME forum is a pretty quiet one, your question would likely have received wider exposure in General Hardware.

IDE drives connect to the power supply's power plugs, and are connected to the motherboard via 40 pin data cables (aka ribbon cable) - so you shouldn't have to buy anything extra. The CD drive also has an audio connector, but a new drive will come equipped with one.

Modern hard drives can and should use 80 strand, 40 pin cable for higher data transfer rates, but the CD drive can use the plain old 40/40

Here's a something of a guide

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http://www.daileyint.com/build/ibuild6.htm

http://www.buildyourowncomputer.net/learntobuild.html

It would be a good idea to make sure thru the manufactuer of the M.B. maker,if the parts (hard drive & CD rom are compatible) I dont see any reason why they would not be ,I installed a LG CD-RW in my PC it slid into a extra 5.25 bay slot on fron of tower and then I attached it to the the P.S.(you P.S. unit should have several extra connectors ) and the IDE ribbon cable that came with the CD burner ,it had a connector at each end and one in the middle , I used that to replace the ribbon cable that was running from my DVD Drive that the system came with. I was able to hook up both drives that way I set the CD-RW to cable select ? My system is not far from simular to your a P3 750MHZ 256MB SDRAM ! When I puschased this inexpensive CD burner ,I did not belive I would be using it alot ,thats why I chose the inexpensive LG CD- Burner ,its turned out theat Iam making backup copies for many of my friends besides myself ,and Iam completely impressed with the performance of this LG CD Burner ,for te quaility CD's it makes ! I should have purchsed several of them !!
Good Luck Nick

keep in mind the most important thnig that you should check if you put 2 devices on one and the same data cabel /not power/ you shold assign for every device his role. on the back of every hdd or cd there is jumper assigning master and slave role to the device you can not put 2 master drives on one and the same data cabel /data cabel is the big white one/ you should change the jumper of one of de devices to be master/hdd/ and the oder one to be slave/cdrw/ if you hook them on 2 different datacabels it is not a issue to care about

The salient points were actually covered (some time ago) in the links provided - maybe you two should've taken a look?

tune in tomorrow for more 'tales from the fringe'

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i guess i should do a lot of research at this point because i don't have any idea what you guys were saying.. @__@

so... any guides for understanding basic hardware?

label me noob!