I have recently received a Dell Optiplex 740 (upgraded from Windows Vista). It's from a friend of mine and I'm trying to get it up and running again for them. The only thing left to do is connect the dvd drive, it's already in the PC but for some unknown reason there is no cable connecting it to the motherboard. I have no idea what the name of the cable is. I would be grateful if someone could tell me and I can try and locate one. Thanks in advance.
There are two possibilities depending on the system's age: a SATA cable or the older IDE cable.
Have a look at the cables below and see which is likely to fit the socket on the back of the DVD drive.
IDE
SATA Cable
I didn't realise it was that simple, looking on the connections on the back I expected it to be a larger cable.
Fortunately I have a Sata cable, so I connected it and started the PC. I checked to see if its enabled in the Bios, which it is, but when the computer is on nothing happens when I press the eject button, and it's not listed in 'My Computer'
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I think I may know what the problem is, where I have plugged in the Sata cable on the disc drive there looks like a smaller connector beside it, I found a lead within the PC that fits that connection, which looks like the power source, so I expect it will work now, I'll try it later on and see if it does.
Is all sorted now, it was indeed the power cable that was causing the drive not to come up. Thanks for your help.
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