I just got an empty hard drive that had nothing on it but the Windows 98 version of DOS. How do I use the CD-ROM in DOS? The CD drive hooks up to the sound card only (except for the power supply), so how do I access the CD drive?

Well, you need to straighten out your hard drive problems first, but to load a CD drive that runs from the soundcard, you'd need to determine the make&model and try to find the DOS driver for it - either at a driver site or at the original manufacturer's. If the driver package doesn't come with an installer then you'd need to set config.sys & autoexec.bat accordingly. One thing at a time though ; )

Boot with a floppy that has format or sys of the same dos version as the boot disk. type sys c: from the a: prompt or format c: /s from the a: prompt As for the cdrom in dos: config.sys 1)load the dos driver for the sound card 2)load the dos port driver of the sound card 3)load the cdrom driver. autoexec.bat load mscdex What type of sound card and cdrom drive do you have?

I have a Sound Blaster 16 sound card and an 8X Creative CD-ROM. And I don't have the installation disks for either.

Creative Labs

I'm currently crunching on a related problem and I notice this topic fairly recent, so I'll put my 2 cents in: (I have a Creative 6x CD-ROM drive, and I'm assuming that the 8x drive you mention is basically the same.) 1) Connecting the CD-ROM to the IDE-controller on the Sound Blaster did NOT, repeat, NOT, ever work for me. I know it sounds paradox, but the IDE CD-ROM controller Creative built onto their ISA Sound Blasters (I've tried with SBPro2, SB16, and SB32PnP) does NOT support the old Creative CD-ROM drives! 2) The CD-ROM therefore must be connected to either an IDE channel on the motherboard (if the motherboard has an on-board controller), just like, and in addition to, a hard drive. I have a fairly decent 486 motherboard that supports the Creative CD-ROM just like that. 3) Or, if that doesn't work (as in my case, because the Pentium motherboard has an on-board IDE controller but doesn't recognize CD-ROM drives!), use an extra (ISA) controller. This could be an IDE controller card, but if you're using ISA controllers, better stick with the CD-ROM controller card that came with the CD-ROM drive (in this case, Creative Technology model number CT1860), because in the days of 8x drives, they did include them! 4) Now for the drivers. Note that the Creative CD-ROMs are not compatible with your standard Mitsumi CD-ROM DOS driver. Back then, they all had their individual standars, which is why we're in such a fix now, right? Two ways to get the drive running. First: Download this file: http://files.americas.creative.com/Drivers/Others/337/SBIDED95.EXE It contains DOS and Win95 drivers for the Creative CD-ROM controller card and the drive itself. You want the file called SBIDE.SYS, in addition to MSCDEX.exe. If you don't know how to install it, just run the INSTALL.exe that's included in the file linked above. Note that the CD-ROM runs great in DOS and Win95, but I'm currently biting my nails trying to coax Win98 into recognizing it! (Think about it: You can install Win98 from the CD-ROM drive, but once Win98 boots up, it forgets all about the drive and never finds it again!) HOWEVER, if all you want is to install some Windows version and need to access the CD-ROM just once under DOS, to (re)install another operating system, simply do the following: Insert blank a floppy disk, then goto http://www.bootdisk.info/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=27 This will easily create a boot disk with MS-DOS 6.22 and its own CD-ROM driver. And, you guessed it, this driver supports the Creative CD-ROM drive (although you should pay attention to the drive letter it assigns, possibly R:\, not D:\!), so you're set from there! Of course, this assumes that the hardware is connected properly (see beginning of this post). Hope this helps, otherwise, send me an email! =) And if anyone knows a solution to my own problem (getting the Creative CD-ROM to run in Win98), please email me! Greets, -psibre

Here's another link for anyone with CD-ROM troubles: http://digilander.libero.it/pnavato/drivers/ Solved my Win98 troubles btw. Seems I had to manually install the IDE controller (with the driver from Creative), THEN manually install the CD-ROM drive AFTER THAT, since neither was PnP! Works fine now.