CompuServe Thread

#CDROM UNDER WINDOWS

15 messages in this thread
#41490From: GARY OXNERFeb 28, 1993 9:15 PM
HI, GARY HERE. HAVE CDROM ON SYSTEM UNDER DOS. WANT TO GET IT TO RUN UNDER WINDOWS. CAN'T LOAD DRIVER – GET MESSAGE THAT NO CDROM IS INSTALLED, OR WORDS TO THAT EFFECT. WHAT CAN I DO TO GET WINDOWS TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE PRESENCE OF THE CDROM (D DRIVE)? ANY INFO ON THIS CERTAINLY WOULD BE APPRECIATED. AM PARTICULARY LOOKING FOR CDPLAYER AND I HAVE THE DRIVER PLUS ONE I OBTAINED FROM THIS FORUM. IT LOOKS GREAT ON THE SCREEN, BUT AS YOU CAN IMAGINE, IT WON'T RUN. PUTS OUT A MESSAGE THAT I HAVE SOME SORT OF UNIDENTIFIABLE PROBLEM. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.. GARY/TX
#41527From: Jack L. ChalkerMar 1, 1993 3:36 AM
First of all, check your caps lock. All caps seems like SHOUTING and the convention is to type normally. Second, there's no way to really determine your problem without knowing more about your system. Are you using DOS5? COMMAND.COM or NDOS or 4DOS or what? If the latter two, there is a known bug. What CD ROM are you using, what driver/manager, and what's it hung off of (sound card? dedicated SCSI?). Are you using Program Manager or a shell? Which shell if so? And hopefully you are using WIN31. Do you have MSCDEX loaded in your AUTOEXEC.BAT? If so, is it current and do you load it high? MSCDEX does not like to be loaded high on most systems. You need both the driver and MSCDEX to access a CD ROM. That about covers the questions and may give you some pointers.
#41552From: GARY OXNERMar 1, 1993 1:28 PM
HI JACK, THANKS FOR THE INFO. WILL GIVE IT A GOOD LOOK AFTER WORK. JUST CAME BY FOR LUNCH AND TO SEE IF THERE WERE ANY RESPONSES. AGAIN, THANKS FOR THE INFORMATION GARY/TX
#41787From: Paul KoerberMar 3, 1993 12:48 PM
> Are you using DOS5? COMMAND.COM or NDOS or 4DOS or >what? If the latter two, there is a known bug. I am using 4DOS with a CDROM (Toshiba 3401B) connected to a PAS 16 sound card. No problems so far. What is the known bug? Should I be worried? 🙂 I also load MSCDEX high with its /E switch, using QEMM. Paul
#41864From: Jack L. ChalkerMar 4, 1993 5:13 AM
You can easily load MSCDEX high using the /E switch; you should NOT have it high using QEMM's Loadhi command, though. The /E switch doesn't really load it in high memory specifically but in available contiguous expanded memory which is not limited to the first meg. I haven't tried the most recent version of 4DOS and I know they were working on the problem, but on 4.1, I think (memory may be bad) and earlier 4DOS had real problems with many SCSI managers, particularly ASPI managers, and if you were using a separate SCSI board rather than running, say, a single CD ROM off a sound card port, Windows would refuse to recognize the CD ROM's existence returning a "not ready" error. The work-around was that if the drive was FIRST logged on at the DOS prompt, Windows would then recognize it as well. If you're not using a dedicated SCSI card and SCSI-2 peripherals you might never encounter this, but it's fairly common. It's why I can't, with my 7 SCSI devices under an ASPI manager, use 4DOS.
#41982From: Paul KoerberMar 5, 1993 1:23 AM
Well so far I haven't had any problems loading MSCDEX high with QEMM's loadhi. Takes about 15K with the /E switch. I use 4DOS 4.01D (the latest version). Since I have just the one SCSI device, the CDROM, connected to a Proaudio Spectrum 16 card, I've managed to avoid the trouble you saw with Windows, 4DOS, and the CD ROMs. I'm saving your message for future reference. Thanks! Paul
#41912From: Wick SmithMar 4, 1993 5:15 PM
Paul: You have the combination I am thinking of. How are you connecting these up? How, in particular, do you get MPC sound into the PAS16 from the CDROM drive? Do you use the PAS-16 to drive your CDROM, or another SCSI card?
#41988From: Paul KoerberMar 5, 1993 2:23 AM
When I bought the PAS 16 and the 3401B, I also got the Cable/SCSI kit from Mediavision. This includes a 50 pin SCSI cable, sound cable, and SCSI drivers from Trantor. I use the PAS 16 card as the SCSI interface for the CD ROM drive. MPC sound comes via the SCSI cable from the CD ROM to the PAS 16. Normal CD audio comes via the sound cable from the CD ROM drive to the PAS 16, or from the headphone jack on the front of the drive. Paul
#41860From: Bruce De VriesMar 4, 1993 4:58 AM
Jack, I called JP software's tech support and was called back. They say there is no incompatibility with Corel SCSI, but that there is a disagreement at to who is to issue a disk reset command when it starts. COMMAND.COM does, 4DOS doesn't. JP software says this should be a function of the drivers. If a DiskReset=Y is placed in 4DOS.INI then 4DOS will also issue a disk reset. JP Software says no other problems exist. Please verify your information and if it is still the case we should let JP Software know.
#41936From: Jack L. ChalkerMar 4, 1993 8:17 PM
Well, I should probably download whatever is the current 4DOS before I checked it out. The last one I tried, which I got off the SimTel board ca. November or December, still had problems with CorelSCSI. Be interesting to see if things have changed.
#42028From: Bruce De VriesMar 5, 1993 11:10 AM
OK, Jack I would appreciate a second opinion on this. The current version of Corel SCSI is 1.1. Perhaps you didn't know about the DiskReset=Y line to add to your 4DOS.INI file. I really like 4DOS and if I had to choose I'd dump Corel SCSI and find another driver for my CD-ROM drive.
#42175From: Jack L. ChalkerMar 7, 1993 5:53 AM
Well, okay, I'll try the DiskReset=Y line and give 4DOS another try. I really do like it, but not enough to sacrifice what I had to. CorelSCSI is one of a handfull of third party managers out there and it seems to do as good or better a job than the rest. If you don't like it, there are other choices. Overall, I haven't found much difference in one over the other, and since CorelSCSI came with my M/O drive and I've gotten to know the support personnel up there quite well, I've seen no reason to switch. What don't you like about it that you think somebody else might offer?
#42223From: Bruce De VriesMar 7, 1993 6:16 PM
If you know of an alternative ASPI driver for the Sony CDU-541 CD-ROM I'd like to try it. I have been having problems with Corel SCSI and finally posted a long message on their forum venting my frustration. The latest version (1.1) failed to list files with a leading underscore in the file name, won't play the audio on a mixed CD-ROM/CD audio disk and I have experienced some drive not ready problems with other programs. I tried running with COMMAND.COM rather than 4DOS and got the same results.
#42266From: Jack L. ChalkerMar 8, 1993 5:06 AM
Hmmm…. Interesting. I've had no problem playing a mixed CD ROM/Audio disk with 1.1's Corel Audio, although I don't use it much, and I can't imagine what CorelSCSI would have to do with a file directory listing. I tend to use either dir or the NDW file manager for directories and haven't had anything missing that I know of. Are you sure you're blaming the right target here? CorelAudio is, after all, a bundled add-in and has nothing to do with the manager; if it's got some problems with some hardware in your system there are a half dozen good shareware programs out there that do much the same thing. I'm sure somebody else here could give you the couple of competing ASPI managers out there (there are also one or two CAM managers out there but unless you're more into Unix than DOS I'd say stay ASPI, since that's getting to be the protocol everybody supports). I have a mailing for one around here somewhere but can't put my hands on it right now. What you are reporting sounds like a driver or device conflict somewhere. CorelSCSI simply refines and adds a series of commands to the standard ASPI manager much as 4DOS enhances what DOS does. It doesn't read disks, it reads drives and SCSI cards and manager protocols. Your system reads the disk.
#42360From: Bruce De VriesMar 8, 1993 8:47 PM
Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm fixing the blame properly. The Corel 1.1 drivers come with a MSCDEX replacement. If I remove it and substitute MSCDEX then the files with the leading underscore _ characters are displayed. The disk with the CD-ROM and audio has 99 audio tracks (sound effects) and that may be part of the problem. I used audio player programs that worked with the Media Vision/Trantor driver combo, but failed with the Corel drivers. I have been programming for over 20 years and know enough to only change one thing when testing, so as to isolate the cause. I am posting this stuff here because I'd like verification of the problem using different hardware combinations.