Installing 98/98 cdrom

[MARKBLACK]

I did a PC maintenance course back in 1998, when win 95/98 were about the only O/S at hand. I'm trying to remember back to how we installed the driver for the cdrom, as far as I remember; we used DOS to copy system files and cdrom driver files. I think one of the drivers was called mscdex.exe. I also vaguely remember we used (very vague though) a floppy disc with the cdrom driver on it. Now I'm confused to why we appeared to install two drivers. Can anybody help simplify this for me? When I tell people now how it use to be done they can't believe it.

When I install windows 98 now, all I do is install a start-up disc and ask for cdrom support, and then I pop in the 98 disc.

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[bailey]

one is a generic driver and the other one would be a spicific driver for the cd rom drive from the mfg.
one would go in the autoexec.bat file and the other one would go into the config.sys file.
today the w98 boot disk has all the files on it to create a virtual drive to enable several other things to be done like fdisk and format ect.

[glc]

Windows has builtin 32 bit drivers for CD drives. In order to access a CD in DOS, you need an actual driver loaded in config.sys (such as OAKCDROM.SYS) and the enabler in autoexec.bat (MSCDEX.EXE - MicroSoft CD-rom EXtensions). The Win98 startup disk does exactly that. The standard Win95 startup disk does not, it has to be modified manually.

OAKCDROM.SYS is a fairly universal CD driver for most modern CD drives, which is why it's on the 98 startup disk - back in the days of Win95, there were a lot of drives that required a specific driver. My 1997 vintage laptop, for example, does not work with the Oak driver - it requires TEAC-CDI.SYS. My Win95 bootdisks have quite a collection of drivers that I've had to add.

[ITlover]

Originally Posted by MARKBLACK I did a PC maintenance course back in 1998, when win 95/98 were about the only O/S at hand. I'm trying to remember back to how we installed the driver for the cdrom, as far as I remember; we used DOS to copy system files and cdrom driver files. I think one of the drivers was called mscdex.exe. I also vaguely remember we used (very vague though) a floppy disc with the cdrom driver on it. Now I'm confused to why we appeared to install two drivers. Can anybody help simplify this for me? When I tell people now how it use to be done they can't believe it. When I install windows 98 now, all I do is install a start-up disc and ask for cdrom support, and then I pop in the 98 disc. MB

What commands are used to copy CD-ROM driver files ?

[MARKBLACK]

I'd assume mscdex.exe. if its the DOS driver, and a floppy disc was used to install, the Windows driver, I guess. Don't forget its me asking the questions, if I knew all the answers I'd know.

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[glc]

Originally Posted by ITlover What commands are used to copy CD-ROM driver files ?

More specific, please. What do you have and what do you want to do?