CompuServe Thread

#Can't find CD-Rom

18 messages in this thread
#77805From: Michael StumpoJan 20, 1994 7:51 PM
Gary, I just received my 3DS R3. It is fantastic!!! I am going thru the tutorials again and am learning alot. The materials Editor is fantastic. Alot more to learn but I know the benefits are worth it. The gamma function is great. The clouds in my renderings don't seem to have those nasty moire patterns anymore, and those ray traced shadows w/ overshoot (wow!!!!!). One question (so far). I edited the 3ds.set file to go to my CD. Sometimes when loading 3DSTUDIO I get a message: "Caution: Drive D not present – Using current drive. Press any key to continue" Why does this happen only sometimes? I have to press any key about fourteen times (I assume this is the number of paths in 3ds.set).
#77825From: Gus GrubbaJan 20, 1994 8:54 PM
It will happen when you have another CD in your CDROM drive. 3D Studio when going up, will look for those material directories and, as they aren't there, will give you that warning message.
#78085From: Michael StumpoJan 21, 1994 6:14 PM
Gus, I have ONLY the 3DSR3 CD in my CD Drive. -Mike
#77843From: Yost GroupJan 20, 1994 9:45 PM
Glad to hear that you got r3, Mike. Groove on, as they say. – G PS: Gus' answer re changing the CD explains the error msg.
#77953From: David RhotenJan 21, 1994 9:17 AM
Gary: Sorry to disagree (>>PS: Gus' answer re changing the CD explains the error msg.<<) but… Both with r2 (mainly) and r3, I've noticed that sometimes when starting 3DS, it will decide not to include my CDROM drive in its drive list. If I quit out and immediately start 3DS again, poof! There it is. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it – just that sometimes it sees the drive, and sometimes it don't! (Yes, the CD is in there in both cases!) Dave (PS – My drive is the Texel 3024 w/ DTC SCSI controller)
#77991From: Yost GroupJan 21, 1994 11:16 AM
We've never seen that on any of the systems here, so I can't really comment on what in your environment is confusing DOS. – G
#78001From: SyndesisJan 21, 1994 11:23 AM
Offhand, I'd guess that it is due to some interaction between certain CDROM driver software and the calls you use to determine the active drives in the system. Perhaps some CDROM drivers don't report as active drives until they've been activated by at least one call, including activation such as a "dir f:" or "f:" or "cd f:\foo" call from the user at the DOS prompt. I'd submit it as a bug for QA to test. 🙂
#78027From: CSA/CAJan 21, 1994 12:41 PM
John, I agree. I always log the CD-ROM with DIR G: (that's my drive assignment) before starting 3D Studio. This has worked with any of my customers experiencign a problem with 3DS seeing the CD. Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
#78241From: SyndesisJan 22, 1994 11:22 AM
Yes, it's not like this is a multitasking OS where drivers can do these things for themselves. 🙂
#78038From: Brian Rudolph [Adesk]Jan 21, 1994 1:52 PM
Adding the -SAVEREGS switch to the device driver line in your config.sys might solve some of the problems. This seems to be good advice for any SCSI device. -Brian
#78637From: David RhotenJan 24, 1994 11:54 AM
THanks, Brain! (oops, I mean Brian!)<g> Dave
#78087From: Michael StumpoJan 21, 1994 6:17 PM
David, >>If I quit out and immediately start 3DS again, poof! There it is.<< That is exactly what happens to me. Even though the CD is in the drive I can't load any geometry or maps. If I reload 3DS, wham! there it is. -Mike
#78098From: Gus GrubbaJan 21, 1994 6:48 PM
Interesting. I've never seen that. But, as you mention it, I remember reading a Windows README.DOC file (some time ago) and it said that some versions of MSCDEX had some problems with Windows where you wouldn't be able to access the CDROM unless you had accessed the CDROM before launching Windows (a simple DIR would do it). This sounds like a reasonable option to the problem both of you are having. B.T.W. I just checked and noticed there is a new version of MSCDEX included with MS DOS 6.2. You might want to try it.
#78638From: David RhotenJan 24, 1994 11:54 AM
Thanks, Gus. I'm just now moving to 6.2 from 5.0 – we'll see! Dave
#78148From: John K. JordanJan 21, 1994 9:51 PM
>>Me CD sometimes don't CD with 3D… Dave and Michael, I remember running into this a long time ago. I fixed it by accessing the CD once at boot time. I put the line DIR K:\*.exe > nul in my AUTOEXEC.BAT file, and have no current CD visibility problems. I vaguely remember an access bug with MSCDEX related to this. JKJ
#78639From: David RhotenJan 24, 1994 11:54 AM
JKJ: That seems to be the consensus! Thanks. Dave
#78086From: Michael StumpoJan 21, 1994 6:15 PM
Gary, As I told Gus "I have ONLY the 3DSR3 CD in my CD drive when booting R3. It only happens sporatically. – Mike
#78128From: Yost GroupJan 21, 1994 8:58 PM
Kevin's solution to read the drive first sounds like a good thing to try. Just put it in your batch file that calls 3dshell.com and you should be fine. – G