need help detecting a cdrom in an old 486 system for a friend

[holden j caufield]

Hi there my friend's 486 went on the fritz and it was because the bios was reset due to an old battery. Anyways there is an ISA controller card where the ide cables connect to. I was able to use the hard disk auto detect option to detect the parameters of the hardrive. But I'm clueless as to how to configure it to detect the cdrom. Does anyone know the universal configuration for a cdrom, ie. the cylinders, heads etc. thanks

 

[holden j caufield]

^

 

[j00]

yeah cd roms dont have things like that. they just need the .sys driver and the mscdex.exe command to work. see what the drive is, may have to take it out, then go online and find the drivers for it (most have an install program). put the sys file wherever, then you will have to modify the config.sys and autoexec.bat the install program should do it all.

 

[~zonker~]

I don't think this is necessarily a bios thing, not sure, it usually was a mattet of some drivers in the autoexec.bat and config.sys for those early CD-ROMS.

YOu may want to look there for some clues.

 

[OS]

I think in old 486 systems, cdroms were configured not in the bios, but by drivers loaded at startup in the autoexec and config files.

 

[mschell]

Generally if the CDROM is connected to it's own EIDE port on the multifunction card it will work. Choose the EIDE option in the BIOS if it's available.
CDROM's cannont be configured using CHS values.

 

[emjem]

Here's some old instructions:

http://www.memory-man.com/html/techmain.htm#cdtrouble

 

[emjem]

config.sys line reads

device=cddriver.sys /D:cd001

where cddriver is the DOS CD driver you get off the manufacturers web site and cd001 is an arbirary device name (I use cd001, easy to remember). Next, invoke MSCDEX, as

MSCDEX /D:cd001

If the cd driver is correct and the hardware is OK, you'll get access to the CD ROM.

 

[DaddyG]

Just leave the BIOS set to 'NONE'. The WIN98 Emergency Boot floppy has a ton of drivers on it that get decompressed onto a RAM drive during boot. They always work for me. Otherwise use OAKCD-ROM.sys (not sure its the actual name but the OAK driver works well).

 

[~zonker~]

In config.sys...

DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:CDROM

In autoexec.bat

C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDROM

"CDROM" can be any text string, I usually put in what the OS reports for the drive identification...

The path for the files OAKCDROM, and MSCDEX will likely be different, do a search for MSCDEX, I think it is in one of the WINDOWS system directories, forget which one..

 

[pugh]

i had the same problem with a older Acer 1995 cdrom on a old pentium 120 pc,after two nights of trying to figur it out i just went and bought a new cdrom,works fine now..try that is all fails..i was told something about the drivers on a win98 boot disk dont work well with older cdroms....go figure. Text

 

[DaddyG]

Pugh, the drivers will work for most IDE CD-ROMS. Some older CD0ROMS connected to the sound card through a special interface. These CD-ROMS need special drivers, but IDE CD-ROMS are pretty generic.

 

[holden j caufield]

thanks yes this cdrom connects to the sound card. I will give it go thanks.