command prompt question in windows 98 1

[sunspore]

Hello,

When I push F8 during boot to get to the boot menu, and then go to Command Prompt Only, I am unable to switch to my CD-ROM drive (D. However, when I boot to Windows 98 and go to the command prompt, I can get to the D: drive. Why is this? Thanks. By the way, I'm using an IBM A22m laptop.

Sunspore

 

[SESaskDFC]

Howdy:

No DOS drivers loaded for the cd-rom.

Murray

 

[sunspore]

Oh, ok. Do you know how I would load the cdrom driver? I tried adding what I thought was the driver to the config.sys file and the autoexec.bat file, but I didn't do it right. I don't know what the driver is called or where it is located. I added the MSCDEX /D:mscd0001 line to the autoexec.bat file and added device=C:\ibmtools\drivers\ibmtpcd.sys /D:mscd0001 to the config.sys file. But apparently what I added to config.sys is wrong. When I rebooted, I got the message, "Error in config.sys file on line 1 (I added device=C:himem here) and line 2, the line I just quoted you.

 

[SESaskDFC]

Go to the following for typical autoexec.bat and config.sys layouts...

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm#5

Make your changes as necessary..

Murray

 

[MyTwoGirlsDad]

Why don't you just use a Win98 Startup Disk and select load with cdrom support?

Is there a reason you have to go the F8 course? That method bypasses normal startup. No drivers are loaded.

What do you think?

 

[edfair]

You could parallel the floppy boot up sequence on the hard drive by putting the drivers you need on the hard drive and call them from autoexec.dos and config.dos.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[sunspore]

Do you mean autoexec.bat and config.sys? I'm sure the drivers are already on the hard drive, but I have two problems with doing that. First, I don't know what the name of the driver is and where to find it on the hard drive. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I know this is something I don't need to do, as there are other ways of doing this, but I'm just trying to understand this stuff better, and learning how to do this would teach me a lot about how things work in there. Thanks.

Drew

 

[edfair]

The drivers are on the emergency boot disk.

You might want to implement the boot menu setup through msdos.sys to enable a [F8] on every boot.

There will be a series of autoexec and config files and their names will change depending on what OS is up and running.

Under DOS the files will be autoexec.bat and config.sys but under 98GUI they will be autoexec.dos and config.dos.
The autoexec.bat and config.sys under 98GUI will be named autoexec.w40 and config.w40 under DOS.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[MyTwoGirlsDad]

What model cd-rom do you have?

 

[sunspore]

It's the one that came installed with the IBM thinkpad A22n laptop. I guess it's an IBM. The specific model is
LG CD-ROM CRN-8245B. The thing is, when I look in the Drivers tab in Windows for this drive, it says no drivers are needed or have been loaded for this device. So it's obviously using the BIOS to talk to the drive. So why do you need drivers to use it in DOS if the BIOS can talk to it? I guess I'm confused between the difference in functionality between Windows and DOS. Thanks for your insight.

Sunspore

 

[edfair]

Now I understand the other post.
No drivers are loaded because windows has drivers to handle it.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[sunspore]

THanks edfair

 

[MyTwoGirlsDad]

Copy the file oakcdrom.sys from your win98 startup disk and use that as your dos driver. This driver works with just about any cdrom.

You would put this file in the device statement in your config.sys. Just remember where you copy it to. The safest place would be C:\.

The statement using your example above would be:
device=C:\oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd0001

This should solve your problem.

 

[AirCon]

sunspore,

If you want to know more about DOS drivers, this is how it works.

First, as MyTwoGirlsDad already mentioned, you need oakcdrom.sys (universal cdrom DOS drivers). But you don't need to copy from floopy, It's already in your windows system.
I don't remember exactly what the folder is, but it has to be one of this
- C:\Windows
or
- C:\Windows\Command
or
- C:\Windows\Command\EBD

So put this in config.sys
DeviceHigh=C:\Windows\Command\EBD\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:CD1

This is an internal driver so DOS can "talk" to the hardware directly.
Note: I use "/D:CD1" this is an interface name to the external driver.

Now you need an external driver (interface) so we can "talk" to DOS, which is MSCDEX.exe this is also in your windows system (one of the above folder) and put this in autoexec.bat

C:\Windows\Command\MSCDEX /D:CD1 /V /M:15 /L:G

Where:
/D:CD1 - locate an internal interface driver
/V - display a verbose message when the driver is loaded
/M:15 - tell DOS how much buffer we want to allocate for this the drivers
/L:G - optional, use only if we want to name it other than DOS order. In this case we name it "G"

Hope it helps a little

-- AirCon --

 

[AirCon]

A small correction

1. This line
DeviceHigh=C:\Windows\Command\EBD\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:CD1

Should be like this
Device=C:\Windows\Command\EBD\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:CD1

"DeviceHigh" is use if we want to put this drivers in High Memory Area


2. The MSCDEX paramaters (/V, /M, /L) is optional, only /D is required


-- AirCon --

 

[sunspore]

Thanks a lot AirCon. These posts were extremely helpful to me. I appreciate your taking the time to spell all that out for me.

sunspore