#Sony CD-ROM w. Tran. Adp
8 messages in this thread
I have a Sony CD-ROM drive, a Trantor SCSI adapter, and Microsoft's
MSCDEX.EXE. Can someone help me figure out how to get the three of them
working together?
The MSCDEX package (from the Bureau of Electronic Publishing) includes a
driver for a Sony adapter card (which I do not have), and the MSCDEX
program needs to know a driver name. The Trantor (T120 or T128, I think)
driver does not appear to have any way to set a driver name (which may mean
it doesn't support CD-ROMs?).
Best case, I'd love to find a software workaround to use the Trantor card.
Next best case, I'd love to know that if I buy a SCSI adapter from Adaptec
or Ultrastor (or whomever) it comes with a driver that MSCDEX can
reference.
Am I close?? Thanks for any help–dave c.
There are 2 Replies.
David:
Contact Trantor Systems at (510) 770-1400. You will need to get their CDROM
driver. I use the Trantor SCSI T128 adaptor with a NEC CDROM drive. It does
support CDROM you just need the correct driver.
-=Martin=-
– via Whap!
There is 1 Reply.
Thanks! Just ordered it, based on your message.
Well, I got the Trantor extensions, and they seem to install fine. However,
when I try and use the drive (cd <drive>:, dir, etc.) I get an error
indicating that the disk is not of 9660 or High Sierra format. The disk
I'm using is the Computer Library CD, which I have mounted on other
machines previously (I also tried a few different months).
Is there anything simple I'm likely to be doing wrong? I will be getting
the US Street Atlas CD this week, but I'm nervous that the problem is the
driver setup and not the CD.
The driver does know the difference between data and audio, as an audio CD
gets me "Drive not ready". TEJECT, etc., sort of work (they don't eject,
but they do allow or lock manual ejection). The Drive is a Sony 8012,
FWIW.
Thanks!! for any help–dave c.
David:
I know nothing about the Sony 8012 drive so can't give you any help there.
I would check that you have it correctly terminated. SCSI can be very
flakey to say the least. The rule of thumb is to terminate the last drive
on your SCSI chain. Assuming you have the Trantor controller and only the
Sony SCSI CDROM, the Sony should be terminated. You can pick up external
terminators at most dealers, especially Mac dealers. Also you should make
sure that the Sony is not internally terminated, if it is you don't need
the external terminator. To eliminate SCSI termination as a source of the
errors. Hook up only the CDROM drive and try it with and without
termination. This whole area is a real mess. Play around.
I don't know exactly what you received from Trantor but I got some
diagnostic utilities in addition to the actual drivers. Have you run these
to check out the system? SCSITEST was the name of the test program. This
should alert you to any setup problems. You could also have memory
conflicts with the SCSI adaptor card and other cards in your system. The
Trantor manuals give info on changing the SCSI ROM address.
As far as the software setup is concerned here is what I have:
CONFIG.SYS: E:\TSCSI\tsicdr.sys /d:TSLCD
AUTOEXEC.BAT: E:\TSCSI\mscdex /d:TSLCD /l:G /M:10
The key is to ensure that the device driver and MSCDEX agree on the driver
name, the d parameter. If you are running DOS 5.0 make sure you have the
latest version of MSCDEX, apparently earlier versions have problems. There
have been messages on this forum describing that problem.
Thats about all I can think of. I found Trantor tech support very helpful
if you still have problems. Good luck!
-=Martin=-
– via Whap!
There is 1 Reply.
Thanks for all the good advice. I think I'm pretty clean on all the
obvious stuff. SCSITEST and TSTATUS both find the drive and are "happy".
The "CHKCD" utility gets to the Serial # on the CD-ROM, but then gets a
flakey Creation Date. I've got the new MSCDEX, and have the /D: flags
synced.
Sigh. I guess the next step is to call Trantor TS, and see if they have
any clue. (I've even tried two different physical drives, although they
are both 8012s).
Thanks again!–dave c.
Dave,
The Trantor driver takes a command line parameter /d:NAME and then
you give the same name to MSCDEX.
OTOH, are you sure the Sony drive is SCSI–some of them (eg the ones
from DAK use) a custom interface, requireing a Sony interface card.
Frank
I got new versions of the drivers from Trantor (mine didn't take the /d:
parameter), but now I'm getting "CD not 9660 or High Sierra". The CD is
one I've used before (Computer Library subscription CD).
The drive is a Sony OEM model (8012, I think) which I have used previously
on both the Mac and a Sun workstation, including on a Sun under DOS with
Computer Library on it, so I'm continuing to suspect my software setup.
Thanks for your response, and for any other info you may come across!
–dave c.