How To Install Or Change My Computer's Optical Drive

Step 1: You Will Need

Step 2: Static electricity

Static electricity can seriously damage the components inside a computer. To avoid this you must ensure you are grounded when operating inside your computer. One way to do this is to purchase an anti-static wrist strap which you should wear at all times. The wrist-strap plugs into an electrical socket which will automatically discharge the static electricity in your body.

Step 3: The optical drive

The optical drive is often called a DVD drive, or a CD drive. It sits at the front of the computer for ease of access, and uses a laser to read and write information to CD’s and DVD’s.

Step 4: Getting into the tower

Open both sides of computer case by removing screws at the back of the tower and sliding the panels off.

Step 5: Remove cables

Remove the data cables and power cables from the back of the old drive.

Step 6: Unscrew the Drive

The drive should be held in place by screws on both sides of the tower. Remove the screws with one hand supporting the drive. Once the screws are removed slide the drive out of its holder.

Step 7: Match the Jumpers

Once the old drive is removed, look at the position of the jumper on the drives rear. This jumper tells the drive whether it is the computer's main drive or auxiliary drive, so you must make sure that the new drive's jumper is in the same position as the old one.

Step 8: Install the hard drive

Screw the drive in and replace the data and power cables. Then replace the tower's side panels.

Step 9: Getting going

Optical drives need a small piece of software to operate, this is called a driver. Some disk drives will be detected by the operating system and a driver found automatically. However if the drive comes with a software disk then you will need to install this software to operate the drive.