Hello,

I just recently semi-resurrected my family's old Gateway 2000 4DX2-66V that we got back in 1994. All it needed was a "new" power supply to get it up and running again. However, ever since it powered on, it has been nothing but headaches.

Back in 2000, before the power supply failed, I was in the midst of reformatting the computer because the hard drive was completely clogged with useless programs that nobody used any more. I was never able to finish what I had started before the computer failed. I can't remember whether or not I had the common sense to make a boot disk back then, but one way or another, I'll be damned if I could locate it now!

I still have the original system CD that came with the GW2000. It contains Windows For Workgroups on it. I would like to install this version of Windows on my machine and use an upgrade CD I have to install Windows 95 over top of it. The problem is, I am unable to boot my computer from the CD drive. When trying to use any sort of boot disk that I acquired from bootdisk.com,I am continually receiving an error message as follows:

CD-ROM Device Driver for IDE (Four Channels Supported)
(C)Copyright Oak Technology Inc. 1993-1996
Driver Version : V340
Driver Name : BANANA
No drives found, aborting installation

Device driver not found: 'BANANA' .
No valid CDROM device drivers selected
A:\>

According to my GW2000 I am missing a very important yellow, potassium-rich driver that is preventing me from accessing any of the CD files I need for my reinstall. Can anybody shed some light on how I may solve this issue, or how I go about acquiring AND properly installing the appropriate driver? Also, if this is important to the process, my CD-ROM driver is connected to my sound card.

Thanks in advance.

Michael

Firstly as you have a Sound Card/CDROM Combo you will need to aquire the MS-DOS Drivers for this product.

Next you will need to install **-DOS from Floppy Disk ( MS-DOS or PC-DOS is required to be able to install W3.x anyway). PC-DOS is a free for personal use download:

ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/software/dos

when you have **-DOS installed you can install the Sound Card//CD Drivers and have access to your CD Drive

I think your problem is not difficult to solve. You need two drivers in order for your CD-ROM to function properly. One of them is your CD-ROM driver (something like VIDE-CDD.SYS, loaded from CONFIG.SYS with a line like DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:IDE-CD. I think this may be the so-called "banana" driver) AND a driver like MSCDEX.EXE (quite easy to locate over the Internet)loaded from AUTOEXEC.BAT with a line like LH MSCDEX /D:IDE-CD. You probably lack the second driver! But first of all, as already noted, you should install DOS from the floppy disk drive, THEN try to reach CD-ROM (I think if you install MS-DOS 6.22, all the drivers you need will install automatically - same applies to other DOSes like FreeDOS e.t.c. Good luck!

arisoue his cdrom is connected to the sound card not ide, therefore any generic IDE driver will not function because the IDE on the sound card is controlled by the driver package for the sound card........

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Okay, so here's where I'm at: I was digging through my basement and found a case of 3.5" floppies, two of which are the drivers to my CD-ROM drive and my sound card (lucky). The computer let's me install the CD-ROM drive, but when I pop in the sound card disk it says that my sound card cannot be properly detected. It's plugged firmly into the PCI slot so in theory the computer should be picking it up. Is this something I should worry about now, or should I continue trying to get my hands on a copy of DOS and try it again?

Directed at the poster who linked me to the PC-DOS download above: How do I install the PC-DOS .iso package using my floppy disk drive? I have WinRAR extractor but I don't really know how to divvy up the files properly.

Unfortunately there weren't any DOS install-from-scratch disks in the case of floppies. Just a pile of 6.22 upgrades.

In all reality, if your goal is just to install Win95, then you wouldn't really need to install DOS (beyond formatting the HDD) or WFWG if you could get your CD-ROM to be recognized. You can use the Win95 upgrade CD as a full blown version (and avoid the DOS/Win3.x "trash" left over from an upgrade):

http://www.netpathway.com/~kramer/w...

Gateway's site is sometimes a little difficult to fish out, a generic driver may be all you need to get it working. If the machine is c. 1994, and has an older Panasonic CR-562B drive, then this post may help getting the drive going (ignore the final post about it being IDE---it isn't):

http://www.computing.net/windows31/...

You could also hack your boot disk to include the driver in the list and see if it can boot from it as well. I did the same using a parallel port CD-ROM and now can install it from a machine that doesn't even have a CD...

I just took another peek inside the case. It looks like the CD-ROM drive is actually a SONY CDU33A-GW, but as I mentioned previously, I was able to find the appropriate driver disk. It let me install the information to the directory "C:\DEV\".

When I boot my computer now I get this message:

"Starting MS-DOS
Sony SLCD Device Driver, Version 1.61a
Copyright (c) Sony Corporation, 1991,1992, All Rights Reserved.
NO DRIVES ARE ATTACHED, DRIVES ARE POWERED DOWN, OR COMMUNICATION FAILED
THE DEVICE DRIVER IS NOT INSTALLED

C:\>\BIN\MSCDEX.EXE /D:SONY_000
Device driver not found: 'Sony_000'.
No valid CDROM device drivers selected

C:/> "

As for whether it is IDE or not. The CD drive has two connectors leading from the sound card. One of them is plugged into the 34-pin slot marked "Sony" and there is another plugged into a 4-pin slot marked "CD-IN". I can provide pictures if necessary.

Any thoughts?

Sony may (or may not) have the drivers for it. You could also try Drivers Guide (be prepared to part with either an e-mail address or some time viewing ads if you go that route). Either way, you'll need the DOS drivers to access the drive and then you should be able to install Win95 when you get to that point (see previously-mentioned link for instructions to bypass installing Win3.1).

Also, a 34-pin cable would mean that it's certainly a proprietary drive of some type. Once you get the driver situation straightened out, make sure to backup what drivers you needed (preferably on CD-R, since floppies are quite unreliable and easily misplaced)...

The sound card with the cd attached should be ISA not PCI. You definitely need to install **.DOS first and then install the Sound Card then CD Driver package.

>>>You definitely need to install **.DOS first and then install the Sound Card then CD Driver package.<<<

Not necessarily. If he could modify a boot disk to include those drivers, then the FDISK/FORMAT and the booting to the CD-Rom could all be done from the boot disk. The "fake" for the Win3.1 file could also be included on that boot disk as well (I've done it with both the parallel-port CD-Rom drives and the Panasonic's CR-562B without even having to touch DOS).

Irregardless as to whether you need to install DOS first or not, you may ultimately be better off trying to find an IDE CD-Rom and attaching it as a slave to your HDD. They're pretty cheap (<$10 new - see below) now, so it wouldn't be that much of a loss to get it going. The audio cable (3 or 4-pin) could just be removed from the drive you have now and plugged into the audio-output port on the new CD-Rom...

http://www.pacificgeek.com/showcate...

http://www.geeks.com/products.asp?c...

I prefer to remove the hard disk and connect it to another computer that will boot from CD.
I partition, format and install DOS, then I copy the Windows installation files (and any other drivers such as NIC and video) to a directory on the hard disk. Toss the drive back in the old box then install Windows from the hard drive.

To install DOS without a boot floppy, make a CD that uses a DOS boot image with the Windows files you wish to install in the CD root directory. Burn at 1x, and don't expect a burned CD to work in ancient CD drives.

http://nightowl.radified.com/bootcd...

"Irregardless as to whether you need to install DOS first or not, you may ultimately be better off trying to find an IDE CD-Rom and attaching it as a slave to your HDD."

I strongly agree. I trash all old CD drives so I can use burned CDs, and the only time I ever use a drive connected to the soundcard is when the computer isn't mine.

Yes; the CD drivers for DOS at Bootdisk.com use "banana" as the name for the CD drive. Weird, but that's how it's set. You can change that in the autoexec.bat and config.sys files if you're inclined.

I agree with dw333b in the set up routine: put the hdd into another PC (if available). Boot to a CD in that machine and transfer all necessary files to C:\SETUP or C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS in the case of Windows 95. This is where OEMs once put the setup files.

I agree with replacing the CD drive. It'll only give you grief. And there's a nice OpenSource burner software package for Win9x called InfraRecorder:

http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

Enjoy.

BobSongs

What is Ubuntu?

Not sure where you're at with this problem now but just thought I'd chip in with a thought! I had PCs from that same era (DX2/66) and this was the early CD-ROM days, and Sony were a big player - I did have some Sony drives and I can categorically say they were all awful and were more trouble than they're worth. So yeah, a replacement might be an idea. What are CD-ROM drives going for these days?!

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the responses.

I have had a lot of luck with the computer in the last couple of days. I answered a local classified ad and bought a floppy copy of both DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1. I installed them both last night. After that I managed to find the appropriate sound card drivers online. I'm not sure why my original driver disk claimed incompatibility, but I got it all working. The SB driver came with the appropriate CD driver, too. They both installed with minimal difficulty.

I now have the machine running my Windows 95 (Plus!) upgrade and several other old programs like Office 97 and Encarta 1994. I also spent the evening last night installing my old games (See: DOOM & DOOMII) and have been very much enjoying the nostalia trip.

Thanks again, everyone!

Michael