Got a 486 for old games, and here comes trouble!!!!

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 7:09 am

Ok guys,

I got a Packard Bell 204CD system from a friend who had taken good care of it. It has 24 Megs Ram, 486 Dx2 66Mhz, 500mg hard drive. SCSI CD-Rom drive.

It came with Windows 95 installed. I formatted and installed DOS 6.22. I have jet to get Windows 3.1. I had to hunt down a replacement battery and actually buy and use a solder gun for the first time

Anyways, it had some sort of Aztech brand sound card in it. The Cd-Rom Drive is connected to it! To make a long story short, I bought a Creative Labs CT1740 Soundblaster 16 with the Cd-Drive interface so I could replace this aztech thing and play my wonderful old Sierra collection in style!

Problem is, The Soundblaster 16 didn't come with the original disks, and the drivers I have found on the internet don't install the Cd-interface, and thusly I cannot use my Cd-Rom drive.

Is there any way around this? Should I buy a different model Soundblaster? Awe32, etc?

Any help would greatly appreciated!

Post by **dosraider** » Fri Sep 02, 2005 8:26 am

http://www.cdrom-drivers.com/

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 2:51 am

Sound Blaster drivers and CDROM drivers are not related. I will thus complement dosraider's link with

http://www.soundcard-drivers.com/

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Sat Sep 03, 2005 7:41 am

Hey thanks alot guys!

These link have led me in the right direction! I've found install disks at those site!!! I haven't attempted anything yet, but will post back when sucessful!

Thanks again for the help!!!

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 8:46 am

Well, I got the soundcard working, played King's Quest IV and everything was cool!

BUT, the cd-drive still doesn't work!

I'm sick of this soundcard garbage so, where can I find a 4X IDE CD-ROM drive?

Post by **dosraider** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 9:10 am

I have 3 or 4 old cd drives laying around somewhere.
But it doesn't has to be a 2X or 4X drive, 32X IDE drives are also working under dos, CDdrive speed isn't a problem on an IDE connection.
Ask around where you live , you will find one.Plenty people has one or two old drives from the time they switched to CD-R.
Also a CD-R/RW drive will work under DOS.
In my new PC i have a DVD-R/RW who works reliable as a CD drive under DOS !!!

In fact you are better with a not so old drive, they can give problems when reading 700Mb CD's, also CD-R/RW sometimes can give reading probs.

And you will need to load drivers in config.sys/autoexec.bat, but i suppose you know that.

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 2:53 pm

What's the problem with your current CD drive? Get VIDE-CDD.SYS - I've yet to see a CDROM drive that wouldn't work with it.

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Sun Sep 04, 2005 3:44 pm

The drive is SCSI and supposed to be connected to the soundcard. I have yet to try the program you mentioned, but I have tried a few of the other big ones ans none work, I'm guessing because the Cd drive is SCSI and supposed to be connected to the soundcard.

I still have the Aztech card that the Packard Bell came with, it has three different cd-rom drive interfaces on it. I have downloaded the original diskettes for the Aztech card so I guess I just might have to reinstall the old card and see if I can make it work there.

I'm glad at least I can play the games that don't need CD, but damn!

dr_st · Post by **dr_st** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:10 am

SCSI CD-ROMs are supposed to be connected to a SCSI adapter, not to the soundcard. Unless the soundcard is a SCSI adapter in itself, which I doubt, considering that you said that you have an SB16.

For SCSI CD-ROMs to be recognized you may need to install an ASPI driver (I think it's called ASPI2DOS.SYS or something similar).

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 12:27 pm

Yeah that's exactly what I thought. But when I got this computer, sure enough the cd drive was connected to the soundcard. The SB16 that I replaced the Aztech with only has one cd-drive input, so I'm guessing now it is not SCSI.

I'm going to re-install the Aztech soundcard today and see what I can get done.

But I really just wanna say screw it, buy an IDE cd rom drive, get an AWE32, an MT-32, and call it a day.

This computer sure does run those old games sweet though, gotta get it working right!

Post by **dosraider** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:51 pm

King Rygar wrote:But I really just wanna say screw it, buy an IDE cd rom drive, get an AWE32, an MT-32, and call it a day.

Easy easy, that's of course a solution, but if i'm remember well there are jumpers on the SB16 to enable/disable the cd support.
Have you the manual/doc ? If so check first if your jumpersetting is correct.
And if i remember very well it's also indicated on the card itself , though not very clearly and in miniature writing, as usual.
Maybe someone has the manuals somewhere?

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Mon Sep 05, 2005 2:11 pm

oddly enough, I put the aztech card back in, and it actually detected the cd-rom drive using the sbpro stuff I had installed for the CT1740 !!!!! But I still couldn't access drive D: due to some error with mscdex.....

Going to do this I tell yas!!!!!

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 4:29 pm

Amazingly I got everything working today! The Cd-Rom, Sound card, etc all work.

But now the next problem. I have lost all my boot disk making skills. I installed Space Quest IV CD and Police Quest IV CD but I don't have enough memory to play!!!! I have like 561,000 KB free space at the moment.

THe computer has 19 Megs of ram but I can't remember how to free up enough to play CD based games!

Please help!

Post by **dosraider** » Tue Sep 06, 2005 5:06 pm

In your first post you stated you has installed DOS 6.22.

FIRST OF ALL MAKE A BOOTFLOP AND COPY CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT TO THE BOOTDISK
bootflop:format a: /s
So, if you screw your config/autoexec up,you always can boot from the flop and put the saved ones back.

In very short:
In your config.sys change the
DEVICE= into DEVICEHIGH=
NOT on himem.sys AND emm386.exe !!!!!!!!!!
be sure the command line dos=high,umb is present.

In your autoexec.bat change the
LOAD into LOADHIGH or LH

You always can disable smartdrive if it takes to many ressources by putting a REM before the command line, it will slow the HD read/writing a bit but not much.

Also with dos 6.22 you have a program called memmaker, run it from your command prompt,it is selfexplaining.(will do 2 or 3 reboots).
Also you can if needed make different bootconfigurations, with/ without cd drivers, with/without EMS memory....

A very usefull command when you want to know what's eating too much memory is :
mem /c/p

You can find plenty info on the internet.

King Rygar · Post by **King Rygar** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 1:57 pm

Thanks everyone! I got the computer running Space Quest IV CD smoother than I had ever seen before! SOOOOO great to be able to play these games again in glory!

Thanks again for all the help Dosraider and everyone else!