what are all the connectors in the cd drive and HDD for?

Question

th cd drive and the HDD have a lot of connectors pls do ex plain and name them

Answer 1

IDE (also known as ATA or PATA) hard drives and IDE optical drives have the same connectors. The 4-pin one is for power, it's often referred to as a Molex plug (because of the company who makes it). This will directly connect to the PC's power supply.

The long one with a bunch of pins is the IDE connection. This is the data connection, and will connect to a flat ribbon-like IDE cable. The IDE cable will have 3 connections - 2 are used for plugging in a Master and a Slave device (more on that in a sec). The third will go to the motherboard, as the motherboard handles connections to devices.

Since two devices can connect to a single IDE cable (called a 'channel'), one device needs to be the Master, and one the Slave. The Master is the one plugged in to the end plug, the slave using the middle plug. You'll notice a collection of 6 or 8 pins on the drive too: these are a set of jumpers used to specify what configuration to drive will be in (Master, Slave, or Cable Select - letting the cable position decide).

The short of it is, since the 2 devices share the same connection, conflicts may arise if both try to transfer data at the same time. In this case, the Master will be given priority. There's also a bunch of stuff with booting that used to apply, but not so much now.

Optical drives will also usually have a small audio plug, used for connecting to the motherboard or a sound card. This is so the drive can output digital audio directly to the sound device, instead of via the IDE connection. Unless you play a lot of audio CDs, it's a pretty worthless feature and entirely optional. And even then, you probably won't notice the difference, no matter what sound setup you have from the PC's sound device. I've got a digital audio connection from my PC to a surround sound system, and cannot tell the difference at all between using the connection or not using it.

However, hard drives these days (and rarely, optical drives) use the SATA, or Serial ATA interface. These use slimmer cables because they transfer data in Serial, as opposed to IDE's Parallel. The data connection for these are also appropriately smaller. In addition, the power connectors use a different shape of plug which is easier to use, but some still come with the old Molex plugs, either instead of, or in addition to, the SATA power plug.

Answer 2

Well, every IDE Drive (ATA) has a 40pin connector. This one is connected with a flat cable to the motherboard and is for the datatransfer. Then, you have the 4 Pin Power-Supply on the right side , 5V, 12V and Ground.
The small tiny jumpers are for putting the drive to 'Master' , 'Slave' or CS 'Chip select'.
CD/DVD Drives have mostly an additional connector for the audio signal, since CD/DVD Drives can also play Music CD's

Answer 3

Yes, after your configuration you would still have 2 channels 3 & 4 HDD to work with. If your left with one, get a dual channel line and stripe your 2 hard drives connected to the one channel. John A+ Certified Professional