• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

MSCDEX-compatible driver for a Dell Latitude C510/C610?

Joined
Jul 24, 2022
Messages
33
Not being able to use the optical drive module supplied with my new DOSbook is not a big deal, as the floppy drive module and the PCMCIA slots are more generally useful in a DOSbook (and if I really need to read optical media, I can always bring up Interlink Server on my DOS tower, sharing its optical drive, and connect through a LapLink cable). In fact, I can probably count the number of times I've used an optical drive from DOS over the past decade (including building a new set of PC-DOS 2000 installation disks) on one hand.

But still, it's kind of a shame to have the optical drive, and not be able to use it. And the "Oak" driver that works on my tower's optical drive doesn't work on this. Would anybody know where I could lay hands on a driver for it, that's compatible with the MSCDEX in IBM PC-DOS 2000?
 
I’m fairly certain the 610 uses a PATA drive, since its drive modules were compatible with the older CPx series.

That said, floating a guess that there could well be chipset shenanigans in play here? The 610 uses an 830m chipset, which I believe is past the point where there was really true according-to-Hoyle ISA present? (Older CPx series used a 440BX derivative.) If there’s a driver out there for more modern machines (Pentium 4 and newer) it might well have a fix.
 
Strange they changed it for this series. I have a C400 and I use oakcdrom.sys for the external drive.

Dell site is saying you need the Samsung driver like you said.

Removable Storage - Driver: Samsung CD ROM, v. M2.31, A03
 
It doesn't matter if it's PATA or SATA. UIDE.SYS/UDVD2.SYS has been made to support all the newer stuff that older IDE drivers (like OAK) can not work with. He should just try it.
 
I am a complete idiot.

The reason why the Oak driver hadn't picked up the optical drive was because the Oak driver wasn't present. It hadn't dawned on me that C:\DOS, being a fresh PC-DOS 2000 installation (as opposed to everything else on C:, D:, E:, F:, and G:, which had been copied over from the DOS side of my tower), didn't have the Oak driver until I'd already gone through the laborious process of finding, downloading, extracting, and installing the Samsung driver.

I copied the Oak driver over from the tower, inserted the optical drive module, adjusted the LASTDRIVE, and rebooted, and the optical drive immediately appeared in DOSSHELL, and I had no trouble whatsoever reading a CD-ROM.
 
Back
Top