CD-ROM Drivers
Note the difference between a drive and a driver:
A drive is a mechanical device that spins disks; a driver is a software
program that tells the computer how to use the drive (or other hardware).
DOS
The first thing you should know is that CD drivers come in pairs: a
vendor-specific driver provided by the CD drive manufacturer, and a common
driver provided by Microsoft. The vendor-specific driver can take on many
forms. You will have to read your CD documentation
to find out the exact name and syntax, but the line that loads this driver
is almost always found in the file C:\CONFIG.SYS. Some typical
examples are:
DEVICE=C:\CDROM\CDMKE.SYS /D:MSCD000 /P:340
DEVICE=C:\PLEXTOR\PLEXTOR.SYS /D:PLEX0001
DEVICE=C:\GSCD\GSCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD0001
DEVICE=C:\DRIVERS\NEC_IDE.SYS /D:MSCD001
The second driver is MSCDEX.EXE, and it is loaded from the
file C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT. Again, the exact line for your system may
vary, but it will look something like this:
C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001
If you paid really close attention, you may have noticed that all these
lines have one thing in common: the "/D:". This is the
really important bit, because it tells MSCDEX how to find the
vendor-specific driver. As you can see from the sample CONFIG.SYS
lines, it doesn't matter what the name is that follows /D:; but
if is not exactly the same on both lines, the drivers will not work.
(Be especially careful not to confuse 0's with O's; a
lot of people trip up on that!)
Windows 95/98
For users of Windows 95/98, the issue of drivers is a little more detailed,
but really no more difficult. First of all, if you're going to be using
the CD-ROM in programs that run in DOS Mode, everything in the above section
still applies to you with the following exceptions. First, MSCDEX.EXE
has moved to a different directory:
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001
Second, when you install Windows 95/98 it disables this line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT
file and adds it to a file called C:\WINDOWS\DOSSTART.BAT. This
means that MSCDEX is not loaded before Windows starts, because
Windows 95/98 doesn't need it. When you shut down Windows and go into DOS
Mode, it runs DOSSTART.BAT and loads MSCDEX then. This
is fine if you always go to Windows first before going to DOS Mode, but
if you boot directly to DOS Mode without going to Windows then you will
have to enable this line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. This can
be done by simply changing the line:
REM - by Windows Setup - C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001
to:
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD0001
just like it was to begin with.
If you aren't able to use the CD-ROM in Windows 95/98, then you have a
completely different set of drivers to deal with. First of all, check whether
the DOS drivers are loading before Windows. You can do this by pressing
the [F8] key right when your computer says "Starting
Windows 9X" and choosing the "Step by step confirmation"
option. If they both are, make a note of which drive letter is assigned
to the CD (typically D:, but systems will vary.) Then go to the Control
Panel, open the System icon, go to Device Manager, and see if your CD drive
is listed. If it is, double-click
on it, click on the Settings tab, and
check the drive letters. If they are not the same as what MSCDEX
used, that could be your problem. Just make both the start and end letters
the same.
If your CD drive is not listed in Device Manager, check to see if your
controller is working properly. This may be either a specific CD-ROM controller,
the IDE hard disk controller, or a SCSI device controller. If you aren't
using the DOS drivers and you can't get the Windows 95/98 drivers to work,
you may have to install the DOS drivers at least temporarily until you
can get Windows straightened out.
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