Install Win 95 Problems

[ALLANB4]

Hi picked up a AST 486DX2-66mt puter Trying to install win 95 , did the f disk created new part. formatted and cannot seem to get CD rom drive to work. just says Device name BANANA then no drives found aborting installation.. then Device driver not found , then No valid cd rom device drivers selected any help would be appreciated, have done this to a few puters but this one has me puzzled as its running the small floppy disk and the old larger one and then a cd rom under that Thanks allan

[Murf]

Your start-up disk/bootdisk does not have your cdrom driver on it.

If your using a Win 95 one, go here and download and install a Win 98 one. It should pick up your cdrom.

http://www.bootdisk.com

[AlaricD]

Murf,
Most of the boot disks on bootdisk.com use the /D:BANANA switch instead of the standard /D:MSCD001. So, it looks like he obtained his bootdisk there already.

Allan,

It looks like the CDROM driver in the CONFIG.SYS did not detect an ATAPI CDROM, hence the "No drives found, aborting installation." Of course, when the driver fails, MSCDEX.EXE will also fail.

What CDROM drive do you have? Perhaps it's a proprietary drive for which the bootdisks on bootdisk.com do not provide a driver. You may need to go to the website of the CDROM manufacturer and see if they have DOS drivers available. Certain Mitsumi and Panasonic drives use 40-pin cables to connect to their controller, but are not IDE/ATAPI. And Sony had some drives that used a 34-pin connector (but don't hook them up to the floppy controller.)

[ALLANB4]

Murf i downloaded the win 98 boot disk and tried it and all i get is invalid system disk mssg what am i doing wrong ??
thanks allan

[ALLANB4]

The CD Rom is a sony CDU33A-01 with the small 34 pin connector and its going by ribbon cable to the sound card ??? i dont know it's just not normal , probably why i got it cheap any more idea's
thx allan

[AlaricD]

Do I know my old-school CD-ROM drives, or what?

You're going to need to get 173a.exe, extract it, copy SLCD.SYS to your boot floppy (the one you were using before, not the new one you downloaded, although that's easy enough to get to work), and then add the following line to the CONFIG.SYS on that boot floppy:

DEVICE=A:\SLCD.SYS /D:BANANA /B:340 /M:P /V /C

I tried getting the file from Sony, but was told I "may" be able to get the file from a Sony site that no longer exists, and that the drive was no longer supported. So, I scrounged around and found it at Alfa Computers Support Page.

I'm not sure why Sony doesn't have drivers for all their products on their page, though... does kind of a disservice to people who own their products.

[ALLANB4]

Hi Well i did what u said and changed config.sys and now the puter says unrecognized command any ideas why ??
thx allan
Well did some more researching and came up with the cd is definately a sony cdu-33a and it is hooked up to a sb16 creative labs sound card by ribbon cable 34 pin, fcc id # on the sound card shows ibact-sb16sony but the card also has creative labs written on the edge ok this is a new one for me to figure out ?? just how is a sound card going to drive a cd-rom ?? any ideas at all on how to get this thing to operate the cd so i can install windows
Really appreciate your help thx allan

[Murf]

Your CDROM Driver can be download Here

Dowload 173a.exe, it says not for the SB card but should work.

If the one that AlaricD suggest can't be found, that should work too.

The sound card drivers are located Here

Follow AlaricD instructions who knows them there old cdrom's.

[AlaricD]

Originally posted by ALLANB4
Hi Well i did what u said and changed config.sys and now the puter says unrecognized command any ideas why ??

Not only did you change CONFIG.SYS, but you also copied the file SLCD.SYS to the boot floppy? That's an important step-- if you're going to tell CONFIG.SYS a file can be loaded, make sure the file is available. Again, once you download 173a.exe, you must run that file and it will expand into several more files, one of which is SLCD.SYS. This file needs to be on your boot disk for the DEVICE=A:\SLCD.SYS /D:BANANA /B:340 /M:P /V /C line to work.

Chances are your sound card is a CT2230 (look on the upper edge of the card), just like one I have in an older system. It may have 3 different CDROM controller connectors... This is how they did it back in '93....

Also, don't worry about installing drivers for the audio card itself. The CD-ROM should work when connected to that card whether the sound drivers are installed or not.

[ALLANB4]

Well gentlemen i think im getting closer to getting this puter working But!!did everything step by step as told and finally got the slcd to show up but mssg at boot is as follows
SONY SLCD DEVICE DRIVER VERSION 1.71A
NO DRIVES ARE ATTACHED..DRIVES ARE POWERED DOWN,
OR COMMUNICATION FAILED
THE DEVICE DRIVER IS NOT INSTALLED
DEVICE DRIVER NOT FOUND 'BANANA'
NO VALID CDROM DEVICE DRIVERS SELECTED

Well thats the mssg but at least it's trying huh ??Also since i got this puter i forgot to mention that the cdrom light is always on no matter what im doing even using a:\ drive it's on ???
thank you so much for the help so far "Allan"

My sb16 card has the #'s ct1790 on hope this helps

[AlaricD]

Much better-- the driver is attempting to load!

It's been ages since I messed with that particular drive (I don't have one anymore), but I think the light on that drive was always on, and just changed color when reading...

You may have to experiment with the /B: switch on the driver line, to properly reference the base I/O of the interface on the card. /B:340 is the default for the Sony controllers, but I think I had to put /B:230 or /B:240 or /B:250 (somewhere around that range-- I know it wasn't /B:220 because that was the base I/O of the audio portion of the card itself. Maybe it had to be 10 higher than the base I/O of the sound card...)

[ALLANB4]

Gentlemen Well a little success on this end I changed the switch to 230 and got the cdrom to work i just finished loading win 95 from my disk and have some more troubles puter says starting win 95 then goes to the win95 screen then kicks over to the command list saying windows did not finish loading and to select safe mode . i press enter for safe mode and the puter just keeps doing this over and over will not start in safe mode at all ???
Help this puter is a hair puller outer
thx allan

[AlaricD]

Kapwing! Getting closer!

Could be some hardware in there conflicting with something... What you could do is copy the \Win95 directory from the Windows 95 CD to the hard drive, then pull out any non-essential hardware, and retry the installation.

Quick and painless way (with Win95 CDROM in the tray):

1. At the A:\> prompt, type: C: and press enter
2. At the C:\> prompt, type: md \cabs and press enter
3. Type cd \cabs and press enter
4. Substituting the drive letter for the CDROM drive for X, type: copy /v X:\win95\*.* and press enter. You'll see filenames scroll by, and get a message eventually that some files were copied.

Now, shut down the computer and remove the sound card (you can leave the CDROM in the machine, just unhook the data cable from it or the sound card to make removing the sound card easier. If you have a modem, remove it, too.

Now boot from your floppy again, ignoring the messages about the CDROM, since, obviously, it's not hooked up anymore.

1. At the A:\> prompt, type: C: and press enter
2. At the C:\> prompt, type \cabs\setup and press enter.

Hopefully, the installation proceeds much more smoothly, and then you can troubleshoot reinstalling the sound card and CDROM once Windows is up and running.

[ALLANB4]

hI FINALLY GET A CHANCE TO GET BACK AT THIS DARN PUTER
WORK, WORK ,GUESS WE ALL HAVE TO DO THAT .. JUST A SMALL QUESTION DO I HAVE TO FORMAT THE DRIVE,, BEFORE I TRY THE TAKE THE PUTER APART WAY TO INSTALL WINDOWS Ha Ha
THANKS ALLAN

[Murf]

NO

You already di, follow Alaricd advice, should install it. One of the reason to install from the Hard Drive, is that older cdrom's take too long to read during the install process and can hang up when trying to read ahead. Your hard drive is faster...