1a. Which-ever bay you want. The diagram is on the black power-supply cover, but that just effects the SATA port used. You can always re-letter drives in Disk Management (but don't mess with C: or boot drive).

1b. Yes, they are all wired up with power and SATA cables. Even the optical bays are wired.

2. Nope

3. Shouldn't be ... I do it all the time. Reboot once after you do it. If you change the DVD drive letter, you migh have to make a simple change in your DVD play-back software to point to the new drive letter.

First, Tesla1856, Thank You very much for your prompt and informative answer.

The only minor niggle I have is the last sentence of your answer to number 3, namely "a simple change to your DVD ....".

Being relatively older in age, how "simple" is the change, or would I be better off just leaving the DVD drive as drive D and renaming everything else (other than C) around it? (Not "neat and orderly" but I can live with that,lol.

As an aside, does having 12gigs of RAM improve the system significantly?. This is more of a curiosity query since I have the same system that you list except for the OS and the Ram, (I only have 6 gigs). I use mine mainly to run photoshop and a lot of it's attendant plug-ins. (I use an XPS with XP for "normal" computer stuff).

Again, Thanks for your help and keep on Gaming.

The only minor niggle I have is the last sentence of your answer to number 3, namely "a simple change to your DVD ....".   Being relatively older in age, how "simple" is the change, or would I be better off just leaving the DVD drive as drive D and renaming everything else (other than C) around it? (Not "neat and orderly" but I can live with that,lol.   As an aside, does having 12gigs of RAM improve the system significantly?. This is more of a curiosity query since I have the same system that you list except for the OS and the Ram, (I only have 6 gigs). I use mine mainly to run photoshop and a lot of it's attendant plug-ins. (I use an XPS with XP for "normal" computer stuff).

Re: Drives

It's really no big deal. It might change itself or not be needed at all. If needed, just go into software and change the default drive.

BTW, do yourself a favor ... letter the fixed internal drives, optical drives, and card reader drives ... BEFORE any USB or portable drives.

Re: RAM

6gb should be fine. You can install AllCpuMeter Gadget if you are wondering (watch it while working in PS). For me, 12gb is partially "future proofing" but I do use it now for Virtualization and general multi-tasking. Also, some games and apps will use all the RAM you can throw at them.

Tesla1856,

First I renamed the DVD drive, original letter + 3, then I finished partitioning and naming the new HD, (D,E,F).

 I rebooted and everything went well. Didn't have to fool around with software for DVD drive, system uses new "letters" for all the drives with no problems. I didn't even have to "initialize" the HD partitions, even with a new hd drive.

Again, thanks for your help and patience.

P.S. Glad I used the same brand  of HD drive (WD Black), didn't have to worry about a new driver, price was right at amazon, and between the knowledge base at WD and your help, life is great now.