I inherited, so to speak, a 486/66 without PCI, ISA only. I didn’t, however, inherit the hard drive. I’ve made gradual progress upgrading the machine, but have hit a brick wall. I’m not able to use the CD drive. As a result, I’m not able to load Windows 98 from the CD. I started by upgrading to 32MB RAM. No problem there. Then I installed a new hard drive. The only snag there was I had to use Seagate’s Disk Manager to format so that this older machine would be able to use this 1.0 GB drive, since it was over the 500-something MB limit and prevented me from just using FDISK (right?) In using Disk Manager, it installs something called Dynamic Drive Overlay, but there are no real system files placed on the hard drive so I still have to boot from a floppy. I made a copy of the Windows 98 boot floppy so that I could change the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files. The thing that seems to be keeping me from solving my problem just by looking at previous posts on this and other web sites is that my CD is not on the same ribbon cable as the hard drive. It is ribbon-cabled to the Soundblaster 16 card. The hard drive is on a separate ribbon cable which is attached to its controller card. The CD drive is set to Slave, which is where it already was from the previous owner. The hard drive is set to Master, which I’m only assuming is correct. (The previous owner had only one hard drive, too.) Is this right so far? It seems with the CD drive cabled to the sound card I couldn’t resolve my problem simply by adding the driver for the CD and changing the AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files as shown in previous posts. The machine needed to recognize the sound card, too. So, I downloaded (on a different machine) the Soundblaster 16 and Creative Labs Quad Speed CD-ROM Drive drivers and placed them in a subdirectory on the hard drive. I also downloaded software called Creative Configuration Manager which apparently is required to install these drivers. I dragged all the system files from the boot floppy to the hard drive then ran the Creative Configuration Manager installation. (I had to drag the stuff off the floppy because Creative Config Mgr won’t modify AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files that aren’t on a fixed drive.) After all of the drivers loaded successfully, I dragged the modified AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files from the hard drive to the boot floppy replacing the existing ones on the floppy. This way the drivers would load when I boot from the floppy. The latest versions of these files are listed below. Here's my AUTOEXEC file: SET SOUND=C:\SB16 SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E SET CTCM=C:\BLAST\CTCM C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q C:\BLAST\CTCM\CTCU /S @ECHO OFF set EXPAND=YES SET DIRCMD=/O:N cls set temp=c:\ set tmp=c:\ path=a:\ IF "%config%"=="NOCD" GOTO QUIT LH MSCDEX.exe /D:CDR101 /L:D echo. IF "%config%"=="SETUP_CD" goto AUTOSETUP GOTO QUIT :AUTOSETUP set CDROM=FOO23 FINDCD.EXE if "%CDROM%"=="FOO23" goto NOCDROM path=a:\;%CDROM%\ %CDROM% cd \WIN98 echo. OEMSETUP.EXE goto QUIT :NOCDROM echo. echo The Windows 98 Setup files were not found. echo. :QUIT Everything before line 8 (@ECHO OFF) was added by the Creative Configuration Manager when installing my drivers. Everything after came from the copy of the Windows 98 boot up floppy. The only thing I changed was the MSCDEX name from /D:oemcd001 to /D:CDR101 since that was a name I saw popping up once booting with the Creative drivers loaded. Perhaps I shouldn’t have done that. Here's my CONFIG.SYS file: [COMMON] DEVICE=C:\BLAST\CTCM\CTCM.exe [menu] menuitem=SETUP_CD, Start Windows 98 Setup from CD-ROM. menuitem=CD, Start computer with CD-ROM support. menuitem=NOCD, Start computer without CD-ROM support. menudefault=SETUP_CD,30 menucolor=7,0 [SETUP_CD] device=himem.sys /testmem:off device=oakcdrom.sys /D:CDR101 device=btdosm.sys device=flashpt.sys device=btcdrom.sys /D:CDR101 device=aspi2dos.sys device=aspi8dos.sys device=aspi4dos.sys device=aspi8u2.sys device=aspicd.sys /D:CDR101 [CD] device=himem.sys /testmem:off device=oakcdrom.sys /D:CDR101 device=btdosm.sys device=flashpt.sys device=btcdrom.sys /D:CDR101 device=aspi2dos.sys device=aspi8dos.sys device=aspi4dos.sys device=aspi8u2.sys device=aspicd.sys /D:CDR101 [NOCD] device=himem.sys /testmem:off [COMMON] files=60 buffers=20 dos=high,umb stacks=9,256 lastdrive=D The first two lines were added by Creative Configuration Manager. The only thing I changed here was any occurrence of /D:oemcd001 to /D:CDR101 (to match the AUTOEXEC file) and the last line from "lastdrive=z” to “lastdrive=D”. The lastdrive line probably could have stayed as is, but I was trying everything I could based on some of the previous messages posted here. I know there are other drivers being loaded in the CONFIG.SYS file (ones that come already incorporated into the CONFIG.SYS file from the Windows 98 boot floppy,) most, if not all, of which I probably don’t need. I just don’t know which of the lines to disable. I also don’t know if one or some of them are counteracting in some way the Creative drivers that are loaded at the beginning. I seem to be getting closer and closer, but still don’t have it. When I boot up, I wait for the Seagate Dynamic Drive Overlay to load then pop in my boot floppy and continue. I select “Start Windows 98 Setup from CD-ROM.” When the Creative drivers load, after the Creative Configuration Manger version number and copyright, I get a message on screen that says: “Found Creative Plug and Play Card: SB16. Successfully Configured 3 of 3 Creative Plug and Play Devices.” So it’s looks really good. After the other drivers from CONFIG.SYS load (some unsuccessfully because there’s no PCI), the rest of the Soundblaster files/commands (the first 7 lines from the AUTOEXEC file) load/run. The last message at the end of boot up is: “MSCDEX Version 2.25. Copyright © Microsoft Corp. 1986-1995. All rights reserved. Drive D: = Driver CDR101 unit 0”. (This is were I got the “CDR101” from that I put into the AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files as described above.) Then it says: “The Windows 98 Setup files were not found.” And the Windows 98 CD is in the CD drive. I can get a “D:\>” prompt, but when I enter a DIR command I get: “CDR101: Not ready reading drive D. Abort, Retry, Fail?” This is where I’m stuck as to what to do next. I just changed platforms from the Mac, so I’m not really capable of determining myself which lines from my AUTOEXEC or CONFIG files need to be changed or disabled, if this is where the problem lies. I’m confident there’s nothing wrong with the CD drive itself since it was working before the previous owner’s hard drive was removed. Also, when I do end up getting the macine to recognize the CD drive and begin to install Windows 98 from the CD, is the installation of Windows going to overwrite all of these Creative driver files that are currently on the hard drive that the boot up floppy calls upon? That is, will the drivers be written over while they are still being used to recognize the CD drive that Windows is loading from and, so, will it stop recognizing the CD drive as soon as these are overwritten? Does this question make sense? Any hints, tips or fixes would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, Seems like there is nothing wrong with your Config.sys or Autoexec.bat files. If you get D: drive after all, it means the CDROM driver in Config.sys recognized CDROM drive, and MSCDEX in Autoexec.bat recognized the driver and assign the letter to it. But because you still can't access the CD I think the problem is CDROM itself, CD disk, and may be the driver. If you're sure the CDROM drive is OK (as you stated above) and the CD disk is OK either then the only remain is CDROM driver. In some rear cases if the CDROM driver not completely support the CDROM drive it can recognize the drive but nevertheless can't work properly. In your Config.sys file all lines with /D:CDR101 try to load different CDROM drivers. I think you need to REM them out leaving just one in a time and then reboot and look what happens. May be one of them will work with your CDROM. Or better try to find the driver for your particular model of CDROM and insert line for it in Config.sys file (remming out other driver lines). By the way I don't see anywhere in Config.sys the line for Creative CDROM you talk about (there are BTC, OAK but no Creative). If you have the driver just try to add it to Config.sys. Good luck, Igor M

Uh, maybe the I/O card is not ATAPI compliant? You may need to find a CDROM That will conform to your SB16 card, if you have one, and attach it to the card. Best of my knowledge it would be a Creative CDROM 8x or less, made by Panasonic.---- A Doofus

Thanks for the info so far. Doofus - I'm not sure what the ATAPI thing is, but the CDROM is a Creative Quad Speed. Also, this card was working with this CDROM before the original hard drive was removed so I'm confident they're compatible. Igor - You're right about no Creative driver showing among the others in the CONFIG file, but when I stuck one in and REM'd the others out, the results were worse. Couldn't even get a D:> prompt. I found the original Soundblaster software CD, transferred it to floppies, and tried that instead of the stuff I downloaded. The onscreen messages during boot were not exactly the same, but similar. The results, however, were the same. I can get a D:> prompt but still can't access the CD. There are still no Creative drivers showing among the others in the CONFIG file, but since the Soundblaster software manipulates the AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files, I assume it would have put a driver in there if it was necessary. I thought any driver needed was somehow being loaded when the Soundblaster stuff that was installed on the hard drive was being executed (eg. CTCM.exe in the CONFIG file.) Just to cover all bases, the Windows 98 CD disc itself is not the problem. I was able to access it with no problem on my other machine. Let me know if you have any other ideas. I can always call Creative tech support, but I seem to learn more in trying to figure this stuff out. Thanks!

Hi, As I said above if you have D: prompt then the problem is either CDROM itself or the incompatability of driver. Try to reduce the Config and Autoexec to CDROM driver only to eliminate influence of other things. For example Config.sys: device=oakcdrom.sys /D:CDR101 and Autoexec.bat: MSCDEX.EXE /D:CDR101 /L:D And then try different CDROM drivers instead of Oakcdrom.sys. Good luck, Igor M

Hi Igor:

Hi Igor I also have trouble to install Cd-rom drives. Would u be able to list the steps of instalation. If u could, please post it on this net. Thanks You Very Much.....~~~!!