Installing external cd rom from DOS

The specs are Compaq Armada M700 PIII 450mz/256mb ram/6 gig hdd. This laptop does not have an internal cd rom & no OS as of yet I need first to install the driver for external PCMCIA cd rom from a 3.5 floppie to put Win 98 back on from a cd. Per the directions at the A: prompt I should type in dossetup & it should automatically install, instead it ask for the directory where the software will be installed from I type in A: & hit enter I hear it read the floppie then it asks for the destination directory, it automatically comes up C:\PCMIDE I again hit enter & it gives me three choices ; ATA FIXED REMOVABLE DRIVE (HDD,MO,SyQuest), FLOPPIE DRIVE:Atapi floppie drive(zip,Ls120),& Cdrom drive:atapi cd rom drive, I have tried number one & number three & it goes back to install from which directory again and just runs in circles if I type in a: it runs again then asks what directory to install in.:flames:

Does the hard drive currently have a formatted C: partition on it? If it is not partitioned and formatted, there will not be a C: drive for the install to create the default C:\PCMIDE folder.

I used a Win 98 preload disk & had preload already copied.

boot the computer with a floppy, when it has got to A:>
type in

C:
press enter
What happens?

I get C:\> prompt.

I am on my way to Atlanta I will check back this evening!

Ok boot with a floppy, change to C: drive and
type in

md PCMIDE
hit enter

Now try... it may be simply that the directory didn't exist.

can you do a directory of c:?

C:\>dir

If you get an error, then the drive is partitioned but not formatted.

To Noonoo that did not work either but glad to here from you. To 3fingersalute Directory of C:\

Msdos sys 44
Command com 93,880
Autoexec bat 37
Config sys 785
Factonly <dir>
Windows <dir>
Autoexec usr 437
Config usr 715
Strtlogo oem 129,080
Pcmide <dir>
7 files 224,978 bytes
3 dir(s) 5,716.52 Mb free
Thanks 3finger your help appreciated

right boot from a floppy
change to c drive
put the pcmcia drivers diskette in the drive
type
A:\dossetup
What happens?

If that doesn't work, copy the lot to the c: drive and run it from the c:drive

The crazy thing is it says "no card services found" when I boot with the driver disk, then it configures the socket to Irq=0 Io address=150 searching for atapi cd rom on IDE bus... I here the cd spin up for 10 seconds Then I get this message **Unable to locate any cd rom drive. A:\>a:\dos\mscdex.exe /d:mscd000
Device driver not found: 'MSCD000'
No valid CDROM device selected

in the config.sys file, is there a line with mscdex.exe in it?

The same thing happens as before should I select cd-rom drive: atapi cd-rom drive or Disk drive : ATA fixed/removable drive

could you answer my question first?

In response to C:\dossetup , bad command or file name.

In response to the ? on the config.sys file there is nothing else.

No, this question....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NooNoo

in the config.sys file, is there a line with mscdex.exe in it?

---

What happened up there is we were typing at the same time

There is no line in the config.sys file with msc

then that's why it's not working....

What do I need to do?

Learn the basics of DOS for a start...
You need an autoexec.bat and a config.sys on the c drive

In those files you need the driver.sys for the cd rom in the config.sys file
an example is here

I was wrong the mscdex.exe goes in the autoexec, the driver.sys file goes in config.sys... but then I haven't done a dos machine for a while now :)
The driver.sys file line in the config.sys file example is DEVICEHIGH=C:\MTMCDAI.SYS /D:123 it will probably be different in your config.sys.

When I used to run 98SE and had some old games (Ultima 7) I had to make pif's and the base lines were similar to these:

autoexec.bat line says:
c:\windows\command\MSCdex.exe /D:MSCD001

config.sys:
device=atapi_cd.sys /D:MSCD001 /P:1F0,14 /P:170,15 /P:1E8,12 /P:168,10

Thanks CCT that was just the ticket !