one for the geezers -- help with old SB16/CDROM config -- solved but...

[thomsbrain]

I inherited my parents old P75, and together with a hulk of a P166 I had lying around I'm putting together a usable machine. I'm using the CDROM out of the P75, which is so freaking old it plugs into the sound card instead of the motherboard. I put the SB16 and CDROM into the newer mobo/CPU but when I fired them up it didn't see the CD-ROM.

Actually, I don't think it saw the SB16 either. (It didn't show up in the IRQ listings in the stuff the BIOS flashes past you when it's booting.) There was a jumper on the SB16 for CDROM IRQ, and I tried changing it but no luck. If you plug the CDROM directly into the motherboard it won't post.

Oh and yes, the setup was working fine when pulled, but I don't understand anything about how it worked since I didn't start building computers until the PII era. Anyone have any suggestions?

 

[jmitchell]

melt it in a kiln, and piss on it
-or-
try creative labs
-or-
try the links towards the bottom of this page

 

[Mavrick007]

What OS were you trying to use to post with? Some of these items since they are so old might not be plug and play so they might not be picked up by the OS.
I would suggest trying to run some dos drivers with it like from a boot disk and go from there. You will need the SB16 drivers to have it actually picked up probably too since some of the earlier ones were probably not PnP.

 

[thomsbrain]

Took a look at those links, and from what I can tell, it should just work. The sound card functions as a proprietary CDROM controller, which I guess should be picked up. But since BIOS is seeing neither the sound card or the controller, obviously it won't work, so now I guess the question is why isn't the card being recognized?

BTW, Mavrick, OS's having nothing to do with POSTing. A POST is when you see the processor/RAM/drive info BEFORE the OS loads.

But if what you mean is that I have to have an OS loaded so I can load the SB drivers so I can read the CD-ROM, I suppose that is possible, but how can you install an OS without the CDROM? I know you don't need the OS because I installed a clean copy of 98 on the P75 a few years back and the CDROM was detected just like any drive.

 

[Colt45]

ive got the same thing.. you NEED the SB16 for it to work.
go into dos and load the dos drivers for the SB16+CDROM.

if you cant find them ive got the floppies here somewhere.. i can send you an image of the disks

 

[thomsbrain]

<< ive got the same thing.. you NEED the SB16 for it to work.
go into dos and load the dos drivers for the SB16+CDROM.

if you cant find them ive got the floppies here somewhere.. i can send you an image of the disks >>



So I'm going to need have a real copy of DOS loaded on the hard drive before I can start installing Windows?

Edit: That would as opposed to just loading the 98 Boot Disk.

 

[Colt45]

Win98 bootdisk will work fine, just

format c: /s /q

and then run the driver installer app, then you can install windows off the cd-rom

 

[Colt45]

OKay, i found the SB16 cdrom DOS driver setup disk.
i just have to install a floppy drive now

can your email take 1.44mb? or do you have icq or msn?

LMK and ill send you the driver disk, just copy all the files to a floppy, and run the app,
after you boot to the win98 disk and format C: /s (transfer system files) /q (quick[not neccersarry])

 

[Mavrick007]

<< Took a look at those links, and from what I can tell, it should just work. The sound card functions as a proprietary CDROM controller, which I guess should be picked up. But since BIOS is seeing neither the sound card or the controller, obviously it won't work, so now I guess the question is why isn't the card being recognized?

BTW, Mavrick, OS's having nothing to do with POSTing. A POST is when you see the processor/RAM/drive info BEFORE the OS loads.

But if what you mean is that I have to have an OS loaded so I can load the SB drivers so I can read the CD-ROM, I suppose that is possible, but how can you install an OS without the CDROM? I know you don't need the OS because I installed a clean copy of 98 on the P75 a few years back and the CDROM was detected just like any drive. >>



I didn't mean that the OS had anything to do with posting cause your devices are picked up according to the bios, but with older OS's they might not be picked up since the device isn't Plug n Play. The bios will not pick up your sound card and therefore will not pick up the cdrom controller. Therefore what I was saying before is that you should load the dos drivers or windows drivers for the SB16 device and then it should pick up the cdrom controller after that. No, you don't have to have the OS loaded to have the CD-rom or the SB16 to work, you just have to have the dos drivers installed and after it works, you can run the cd to install the OS if you would like.

The SB16 has to be found first and then the cdrom controller since it's based off of the SB. I was just curious if there was an OS installed onto the hard drive before trying to connect the cdrom, cause if there was, it still might not notice the cdrom until you load the drivers since it's not plug and play.

 

[Colt45]

here is a zip of the driver disk, just unzip to a floppy

so:

----boot to win98 disk, format c: /s (/q if you want as well)
----restart
----pop this floppy into floppy drive and type "install"
----follow instructions.

good luck

 

[thomsbrain]

OK, I'm gonna give it a try.

Sorry Mavrick, I didn't understand you right the first time

 

[thomsbrain]

ok, here's the update. I tried doing the format c: /s /q thing and the command was completed, but when I boot from the c drive, I just get this message:

"stage1"

The same thing happens if I copy the entire contents of the floppy to the hard disk manually. I also tried messing around with some DOS versions I found on the internet but they either wouldn't load (the version 5 and 6.22 ones I found) or when they did they didn't recognize the hard disk and I could only access the A: drive (the version 6.22 boot disk I found). Dasm! This is turning into quite a production. What do I do now, Colt? (And thank you all for your advice so far!)

 

[Colt45]

hmm...
very weird. Are you sure the HDD is selected right in the BIOS? LBA enabled if neccersarry?

seems very strange.

all i can think of is double chack the bios settings. ive never had anything like that happen to me before.

good luck again

you could try FDISKing it too, make sure the partition is marked active etc.
then try again. did you just make the win98 bootdisk? is there a chance it is corrupt?

if you have access to a win98 machine it would be a good idea to make another, just in case

 

[WarCon]

What model number? Here is the Creative support site for that card.........Creative. Another place to look is Driverguide, it has alot of user uploaded drivers, but you might have to get a more specific number off the card (or maybe even the CD player). Isn't working with this legacy equipment both fun and challenging.........? (BTW that last sentence was light sarcasm..........)

 

[thomsbrain]

<< What model number? Here is the Creative support site for that card.........Creative. Another place to look is Driverguide, it has alot of user uploaded drivers, but you might have to get a more specific number off the card (or maybe even the CD player). Isn't working with this legacy equipment both fun and challenging.........? (BTW that last sentence was light sarcasm..........) >>



The drivers and all that should be fine, especially since Colt gave me the DOS drivers. As for the Creative site, yeah, I checked it out. Basically the manual doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. It just sort of assumes you have DOS installed already, which is what's holding me back right now. I'm having trouble getting a bootable copy of DOS onto the hard disk. But I'm gonna run through FDISK one more time and see if I can't get that to work.

 

[Pederv]

What your gonna have to do is make a bootable floppy with the sound card drivers and the cdrom drivers. The Sound card drivers need to be loaded before the cdrom drivers, in the config.sys. Don't forget mscdex, in the autoexec.bat
Or you can just dump the old cdrom and get a new one, that is if the motherboard bios will recognize ATAPI devices.

 

[thomsbrain]

<< What your gonna have to do is make a bootable floppy with the sound card drivers and the cdrom drivers. The Sound card drivers need to be loaded before the cdrom drivers, in the config.sys. Don't forget mscdex, in the autoexec.bat
Or you can just dump the old cdrom and get a new one, that is if the motherboard bios will recognize ATAPI devices. >>



No way I'm spending money on this.

How do I make a bootable floppy that will load the drivers? Do I just have to edit the autoexec.bat file? And mscdex is the generic CDROM driver, right?

 

[WarCon]

Sorry for the confusion. So what your saying is the command.com that Win98 boot disk (/s switch) installs is incompatible with the driver and is causing this error? Or are you just having problems with that hard drive? Did the hard drive boot without the driver installed? (Just trying to narrow in my mind what's happening) Also wondering about the driver (I downloaded it also), and the readme is for OS/2. Was that readme that I could view in Win98, just an addendum? It seems like its also for the C563-CLI-01 drive (CDROM)

I really like driverguides selection of user posted drivers though, its worth going there after you get model numbers.

Remember you most likely will have to have mscdex.exe to load the cdrom in dos, after you get the right driver loaded. If I remember right there is some file that needs to load to manage the sound card and IDE settings in dos. The install program should include diagnose.exe (or com) which will help you set the card manually or figure out the settings its on.

Man I haven't messed with one of those buggers in a long while.

.....................edit.....................
Was thinking and looking through uploaded drivers and I think you need to get the model number from the CDROM to be able to get it to work right. I don't remember there being a generic driver for it. Unless that sbbasic.exe from creatives site has managed to incorporate all the model's.

 

[thomsbrain]

right now i'm just trying get a copy of DOS loaded on the hard disk. (I know the disk is ok, by the way). I can't load the driver till I have something to load it onto. I think I may just need to wait till I happen to go to my parents house and borrow their copy of DOS. Hopefully that will load. Either that or if someone can tell me how to modify a boot disk to load the driver...

The problem right now isn't a driver issue yet, like "do i have an ok driver." It's getting something on the hard disk that I can use to boot that will load a driver. Once I have some form of DOS running that booted using the creative driver, I ought to be able to start the Windows 98 installation and I'd be home-free.

BTW: I should have mentioned this earlier: I have two HD's in this system, one on each IDE channel. One has a primary partition. The other only has an extended partition with a logical drive that's not even formatted or anything. It's not trying to boot off the other hard disk, so I don't think it's making any difference that there are two, but I thought I ought to mention it.

Here's a thought: Is there a way to install Windows 98 over a network? Could I feed it the install from my Windows 2000 machine?

 

[WarCon]

I am not sure of the the potential problems this would cause, but you could just install 98 on the other machine and then move the hard drive over. Make sure you load it from cab's copied to the hard disk, because you won't have a CDROM right away until you manage to get the SB16 working.

Yes you can load from the network, but getting it to work in dos isn't any easier......

 

[WarCon]

One last quick question before I go to bed. After you format c: /q /s ed the hard drive, was it bootable? It should of been. Thats what the /s switch does. (sys command).

 

[Dennis Travis]

Since you did a Format /s to the HDD it should have booted. I am wondering what that "stage1" message is all about? Where did this hard drive come out of? What OS was on it before? That "stage1" message might be something in the boot block. Try from your Dos Boot Disk running fdisk /mbr and see if that will take care of it. After that run fdisk without the /mbr and make sure the c partition is set active. Then try formatting again format /s and then try booting off the C drive and see what happens.

You can make a boot floppy with all the drivers for the SB16 and Propritary CDROM on it with the drivers that Colt45 sent you and if I knew the driver names I could show you how to make the config.sys and autoexec.bat to boot with CDROM support. If you could get the system to boot from the hard drive it would be even easier as you could just run the install/setup on the creative disk that Colt sent you and it would do it all for you. Usually the cdrom's creative used back then were Panasonic 2x drives with a propitary interface

Most SB16's are not Plug and Play and will not show up on the IRQ list during post.


Here are some sample config.sys and Autoexec.bat files off my one old Win 98 Bootdisk that I use for working on old systems. These used to work with my old SB16 with Creative 2x CDROM drive. You will need the sbcd.sys and mscdex.exe drivers on your boot disk.
the sbcd.sys is the CDROM driver and the mscdex assigns a drive letter for the CDROM in DOS.


Config.sys:

device=himem.sys
DEVICE=SBCD.SYS /D:MSCD001 /P:220

Autoexec.bat:

MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /M:10 /V


Hope some of this helps. If I was there I could get it working for you.

I am pretty sure I have the origional Creative disk around somewhere if what you were sent does not work. Let me know.

 

[bluemax]

I don't know if anyone's figured this out yet, but it's most likely NOT AN IDE DRIVE! The old days had 3 different CD-ROM interfaces:
Sony, Mitsumi, Panasonic/Creative. Your Creative (1-4x) drive is going to be one of those. You MUST use the Creative Labs' SB16 and/or CD-ROM drive's installation routine/software to make DOS recognise the CD-ROM drive properly.

I have to mention that a new 40x IDE drive can be had VERY cheap. Getting this CD-ROM drive going is probably not worth the effort if you don't have the SB16 and/or CD-ROM drive software.
The SB16 is definately worth keeping.

 

[Mavrick007]

<< How do I make a bootable floppy that will load the drivers? Do I just have to edit the autoexec.bat file? And mscdex is the generic CDROM driver, right? >>



You can edit the Autoexec.bat and config.sys files on your boot disk to load the drivers and settings into memory. Make sure that the SB16 lines come first and anything to do with the cdrom to come after the SB16. Make sure the drivers for these devices are on the diskette too. Mscdex is like someone said the way that your os will assign a drive letter to the cdrom.

Hehe Ok, I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but was this cdrom attached to the SB16 in the beginning? If not then it's as Bluemax said partially, the older SB cards had interfaces that would accept certain cdroms and if you didn't have that "brand" then it wouldn't work off of the sound card bus, and therefore would not show up anyway. If it's a newer drive, then it might not work off that sound card as well cause it's not meant for the newer tech. It's not that the cdrom isn't ide, cause they were ide drives, but Creative had an agreement to add the proprietary interface with certain brands. My old SBPro(long may it rest in peace) had even less of an interface that would let it only use one brand of cdrom off of its bus so I ended up buying an external cdrom with its own controller card.

The problem is that there was so many different SB16 versions or models made that you would be hard pressed to find the exact one(check for the model number on it). I've seen SB16 isa, SB16 pnp, SB16 pci, SB16's that had the same specs but the components on them would look different.

Keep trying, it will probably take a bit of fiddling around to get it to work. If you can't get your OS loaded from cd onto that machine, try putting the hd in another machine and then installing the OS and transferring back to the other machine. Once the OS is installed, it shouldn't be hard to install the sb16 and then get the cdrom working after that.

 

[DSTA]

Since you did a Format /s to the HDD it should have booted. I am wondering what that "stage1" message is all about? Where did this hard drive come out of? What OS was on it before? That "stage1" message might be something in the boot block. Try from your Dos Boot Disk running fdisk /mbr and see if that will take care of it. After that run fdisk without the /mbr and make sure the c partition is set active. Then try formatting again format /s and then try booting off the C drive and see what happens.

Agree with that procedure.

My guess on that misterious "stage 1" message: you (or someone else) had a boot manager on that machine (System Commander being a prime suspect here). The fdisk /mbr should take care of that.