Most hard disk drives have jumpers that must be set for the drive to work properly with the computer. The jumpers tell the computer whether you are using one hard disk drive or two. If you purchased your computer with a hard disk drive already installed, these jumpers have been set correctly for your system.
If you install a hard disk drive in your computer, be sure to check the drive’s jumper settings before you install it. See the documentation that came with your drive for the proper settings, then follow the instuctions below.
If you install a second hard disk drive, you must set the jumpers on both drives to indicate which drive is the master (primary) drive and which is the slave (secondary) drive. A master drive is the drive on which you’ll install the operating system that the computer loads into its memory each time you turn it on. You can run application programs and store data on both the master and slave drive, but the operating system must be on the master drive.
Where to Go Next
To install a hard disk drive in the vertical drive bay, see the next section. To install a hard disk drive in the lower horizontal drive bay, see “Installing a Drive in a Horizontal Bay” on page
5 - 4 Installing and Removing Drives