CD-ROM Drive Troubleshooting – Page Three

Whether you are installing a new CD-ROM drive, replacing a drive or just testing a drive to see if it is physically defective, you will need to obtain certain files for a boot disk and in addition, you may need to create or at least edit two files to add the appropriate command lines. 

Keep this in mind, in order for any computer to recognize and use any CD-ROM drive when booting into MS-DOS, you must have four specific files either on a bootable floppy disk or on your computers hard drive. These files consist of the following:

• Config.sys

• Autoexec.bat

• Mscdex.exe

• And the driver for your particular CD-ROM drive. 

In addition to having these files, you will need to edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to insert command lines that will enable the driver for the CD-ROM drive during the boot process of your computer. Generally, when you purchase a CD-ROM drive the manufacturer includes a drivers diskette on which you will find the driver and there may also be an installer program that will edit your config.sys and autoexec.bat files for you. We have found, however, that this does not always work correctly, therefore we will walk you through the process of doing this manually. The procedure for doing the editing is relatively easy as long as you take your time and try to understand the process and follow the instructions. Pay particular attention to blank spaces in command lines, as this is where most people stumble.

Since this is a continuing page from our CD-ROM drive troubleshooting section, we are going to make a few presumptions and use those to form the basis for the information that follows.

1. You have checked the CD-ROM drive as well as each of the connections to it such as the power and ribbon cables and everything is properly connected.

2. You have checked the CD-ROM drive under power and the tray opens and closes normally indicating that it is being powered.

3. You have booted into Windows, checked Device Manager, and all appears normal except for the fact that Windows cannot load the CD-ROM device or Windows notes and error regarding the drive.

4. You have located the CD-ROM drivers for your particular drive.

5. You now need to check and determine whether or not the CD-ROM drive has failed physically.

With the foregoing in mind, we will be building a bootable floppy disk, adding the four files noted above and then edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat to insert command lines for your particular CD-ROM drive.

Whether you add and then edit these files and create a bootable floppy disk that loads the CD-ROM drivers or you create these files on and then boot to your hard drive really isn’t as important as the procedure itself. We prefer that you use a bootable floppy as it provides you with a way to check your CD-ROM drive physically and prevents you from accidentally causing problems for your Windows setup. Windows, any version, does not like the use of MS-DOS commands enabling hardware devices prior to the Windows interface loading. It can be done as a method to temporarily work around a problem, but it should not be used on a long term basis. Further, this procedure is necessary more for Windows 95 than it is for Windows 98, as in Windows 98 you can build a bootable floppy and Windows will create CD-ROM support at the same time.

Assembling the boot floppy disk:

1. On a computer running Windows 95, insert a new floppy disk into the drive. Now double click My Computer to open. Now right click on the floppy drive and choose format.