Drives have traditionally been secured in place with screws, usually with a fine thread for external drives and coarse thread for internal hard disk drives. External drives typically slide in from the front, while internal drives slide in from inside the case.

Several manufacturers offer screwless installation, using either drive rails or sliding latches that engage with screw holes. Our Case Reviews highlight several designs.

A few notes about jumpers on Ultra ATA and ATAPI drives. First, the "Cable Select" setting works well with most motherboards and drive combinations, and the "last drive" (the one at the cable's end) becomes Master. Second, for manually configured "Master/Slave" combinations, the end drive should be Master. Third, Western Digital Ultra ATA drives usually have different settings for "Master" than for "Single", and the "Master" setting will typically malfunction if there's no "Slave" on the same cable.