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386SX No CD-ROM Option in BIOS

aoresteen

aoresteen

Experienced Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2011
Messages
56
Location
Newnan, GA USA
Got my cute little 386SX 40 MHz running. 16MB RAM, i387 NPC, 500MB hard drive, VGA, IBM PC DOS 7, floppy disks etc. Next is to get the CD-ROM drive to work.

Motherboard: Forcom M396F ver 2.7
BIOS: AMI ver unknown

In the bios for IDE set up there is NO option for CD-ROM drive. Just hard drive types 1 to 47. I couldn't find an auto detect setting either.

How do I get the BIOS to reconize the CD-ROM as an IDE slave device?

I know how to set the CONFIG.SYS & AUTOEXEC.BAT for CD-ROM use but since the BIOS says that there is no CD-ROM present it doesn't work.

Ideas?

Thanks!
 
IIRC, the type you use the CONFIG.SYS & AUTOEXEC.BAT to configure is the (proprietary) SCSI variety and not the IDE variety.
 
I tried using the Oak CD-ROM driver but it didn't work. I'll try it again.

I have 4 other DOS computers running with CD-ROM drives.
 
aoresteen said:
I tried using the Oak CD-ROM driver but it didn't work. I'll try it again.

I have 4 other DOS computers running with CD-ROM drives.
Click to expand...
Presumably all with CD-ROM aware BIOSs and as old as your 386SX?

Is it in fact an IDE (ATAPI) CD-ROM drive? Does it work in one of those 4 DOS computers?
 
I've never encountered a pre-Pentium computer with a CD-aware BIOS (and even a lot of Pentium computers won't boot from CD.) Just tell the BIOS there's nothing there and use MSCDEX...
 
MikeS said:
Huh? Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
I dunno, maybe I am. I don't currently use a CD-ROM in anything that old but when I did they weren't IDE, they were SCSI and had proprietary interfaces like SoundBlaster or some even had their own 8-bit cards. If you say you can do it I'll believe you. I've just never done it, myself.
 
I just checked everything - cable, jumpers ect. Re-booted with OAK CDROM active in the config.sys.

When the Oak CD-ROM driver loads in the CONFIG.SYS it can't find a CD-ROM drive. Says no drives are present. No driver loaded.

Thus MSCDEX.EXE in the Autoexec.bat can't find a driver so it aborts as well.

Somehow the BIOS needs to report a CD-ROM on an IDE bus.
 
aoresteen said:
I just checked everything - cable, jumpers ect. Re-booted with OAK CDROM active in the config.sys.

When the Oak CD-ROM driver loads in the CONFIG.SYS it can't find a CD-ROM drive. Says no drives are present. No driver loaded.

Thus MSCDEX.EXE in the Autoexec.bat can't find a driver so it aborts as well.

Somehow the BIOS needs to report a CD-ROM on an IDE bus.
Click to expand...
Like I mentioned above, I've never run an Atapi drive on a 386 but there are others who say it's possible so try doing what they say to get it going. BTW, it's not an IDE bus it's an ISA bus and it can handle IDE, MFM, RLL, ESDI and SCSI drives.
 
It really shouldn't need to, OAKCDROM/MSCDEX works fine on my 386 with the BIOS thinking there's nothing there. What do the master/slave/cable-select jumpers look like on this IDE chain?
 
Stone said:
I dunno, maybe I am. I don't currently use a CD-ROM in anything that old but when I did they weren't IDE, they were SCSI and had proprietary interfaces like SoundBlaster or some even had their own 8-bit cards. If you say you can do it I'll believe you. I've just never done it, myself.
Click to expand...
Well, you're sort of correct; "IDE" drives used the ATAPI protocol which is sort of SCSI over the IDE bus. Of course there were also 'real' SCSI drives, along with the proprietary Sony, Mitsumi and Panasonic interface drives, but they all required a driver AFAIK.
 
SOLVED!

Looking at the motherboard I realized what everyone was saying is correct. The BIOS doesn't give a hoot about a CD-ROM drive. The IDE controller is an *ISA card*, it's not built into the motherboard. The only device built in is the real time clock. Eveything else is on ISA cards. Duh!

Cables looked fine. Still no luck.

I pulled the drive & cable thinking I might have a bad IDE cable. Looking at the CD-ROM drive connection I saw my problem. Two pins were bent flat and not connected. I streightened out the pins, checked the jumper and put it back together. I must have mis-aligned the IDE connector when I put it on years ago as it hasn't worked for a very long time.

Bingo! Oak CDROM driver found it and all is good. Since it was a Mitsumi drive I switched to the Mitsumi CD-ROM driver and saved about 25K of RAM.

Thanks for all your help here! It been a LONG time since I played with an ISA board like this!
 
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