Problem recognizing CD-ROMs Asus A7V

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I can't get the A7V BIOS to recognize any IDE CD-ROMs. I need to reinstall Win98 so I need to either boot from a CD or a DOS floppy, but I can't do either. The CD drives work fine when I boot into Win98, but when I start with a floppy with the proper drivers it says there are no drives present. I also created a Win98 boot disk (the one that gives the option to boot with or without CD support), but to no avail.

I've tried every possible combination of different cables, and changing the master/slave/cable select jumper. I even tried the CD drive in place of the HDD--which works fine on primary/master--but that didn't work.

I would settle for booting from a CD drive but the ATAPI CD-ROM option in the BIOS lists only "None" and "Disabled."

Also set the primary/secondary master/slave options to Auto, CD-ROM, etc. to force the issue but no luck.

Thanks for any help

 

[mechBgon]

So... the drive is detected by the BIOS (it must be, since it shows up in Win98). However, it doesn't get detected by the Win98 boot diskette... hmm, if you have any other CD-ROM drives you can try, that might be worth a try. Also, I assume you've got the CD drive on the "normal" IDE controller instead of the Promise controller? I don't even think it would work on the Promise controller, but...

Good luck! Welcome to the Forums by the way

 

[mechBgon]

Incidentally, if the CD drive does work in Win98, another really simple approach is

• Copy the contents of your Win98 CD-ROM to a folder on the C: drive, let's say C:\Win98
• Boot from your Win98 floppy and Start Computer Without CD-ROM Support, and you're at the >A: prompt now
• Type C:, Enter, then cd win98 to change to that folder
• Type setup.exe, Enter, and it's off and running

Before starting setup.exe, you could delete the other folders on C: if you wanted, along with any excess files in the C:\ directory. This has an added advantage that the computer will always look at C:\Win98 when it needs a file off the Win98 CD-ROM, so you don't have to hunt it down every time you plug in a USB mouse or whatever.

Edit: if you want to do a full reformat, this will not work as stated. You could still run format c: /s from the boot diskette to format the hard drive with the system files needed to boot, and then put that hard drive into another computer as a secondary drive just to copy the Win98 setup files to it, then put it back in the A7V system and boot from the hard drive. It will leave you at the C: prompt and then you can cd win98 and run Setup from there.

 

[Harvey]

Another thing you can do is create a very basic Win98 startup disk and add a good generic CD-ROM driver. Besides the system files (MSDOS.SYS, IO.SYS, and COMMAND.COM), at a minimum, it should contain these files:

FDISK.EXE
FORMAT.COM
MSCDEX.EXE
SCANDISK.EXE
SYS.COM
XCOPY.EXE
<Generic CD-ROM driver>.SYS

Mine also includes an older mouse driver, MOUSE.COM ver 8.20 and a good ASCII text reader, Verne Buerg's LIST.COM, and a good DOS ASCII text editor, such as the old Norton E.COM. My AUTOEXEC.BAT reads:

@ECHO OFF
VERIFY ON
MSCDEX /D: MSCD001/V
MOUSE

My generic CD-ROM driver is called VIDE-CDD.SYS, so my CONFIG.SYS reads:

DEVICE=VIDE-CDD.SYS /D: MSCD001

When you boot from this disk, it should recognize your CD-ROM. If you want to partition your drive, before you install Windows, run FDISK from the DOS prompt, and create your partitions. Don't forget to set your active partition. Then, format the drive(s) from the DOS prompt.

After you FDISK, reboot, go to the CD-ROM (which won't be D:\ if you partitioned your HD), and run SETUP.

BTW -- If you're not afraid of editing files from the DOS prompt, this boot disk can save your butt when even the "official" Windows Rescue Disk won't.

Good luck.