Installing old hdd...kinda stuck : 729

I've had some help this morning from a friend. The old hard drive needs to connect onto the DVD ribbon and power cable. It's not long enough if the hdd were placed in the hdd bay. Old hdd needs to reside along the DVD drive but the bay is entirely too large to securely house the hdd. My friend has a bracket-housing that is made for just this purpose, allowing me to secure the hdd into the CD bay. The other option is to get an extension ribbon and cable that will stretch over to the hard drive bay. She seems to think this is not the best solution as the extra ribbon cuts down on air flow in the box. Third option is to buy an encasement that the hdd fits into and it becomes an external drive connecting via USB. Are we right in buttuming there are no provisions within the box to retro-fit the EIDE hard drive to the CD bay? Monica (who's hoping she used all the right terminology)