• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Sound card cable

solarpv

Experienced Member
Joined
Dec 31, 2015
Messages
123
Location
East PA
Hi,
I have a dvd rom installed in my win 98 Gateway. It has a sound cable that runs from the dvd to the sound card.
It all works fine.
I also installed a cd writer. It seems to work but I have no sound from the writer.
I am guessing it needs the same sound cable but the sound card only has 1 plug for the cable.
Is there a way to hook up these 2 drives to get sound.
Thanks
By the way, VCF East was excellent! We had a great time there!
 
Windows 98 supports digital read-out of cd audio. Just enable it for the writer in the device manager and you don't need any cable. The cable is only to transfer analog audio to the sound card, which should be avoided if you can enable digital read-out.
 
Hi
Thanks for the info but I don't have an option to enable digital in device manager.
Also I need the software to use the writer.
Thankssound.JPG
 
Can you enable it for the DVD drive? If so, you can swap the cable over to the writer.
 
No, it is grayed out in the dvd too.
No big deal, I can use it the way it is.
What I really want to do is use the writer to back up some of the Destination applications.
Any software that will work wit this system?
Also the usb does not read my flash drives. I am using old flash drives too. Less than 2 gigs.
 
Most burning software from the time should work, like Nero, WinOnCD etc.

Win98 does not support USB flash drives out of the box. You need to install a driver for the flash drive (yes, for every individual one you use). There is also a hacked SanDisk driver that works for most. But if you run second edition, it's best to just install "nusb", which will add the USB stack from Windows ME.
 
I found it under multimedia but it is grayed out.
View attachment 1240495
I do believe that means Windows 98 does not have a driver installed that supports Digital Audio. I've seen it, but it's been a while.
Back when having TWO optical drives was a bragging point, the burner was typically the one you didn't connect analog audio to if your sound card only supported one CD drive. You had the burner for all your Napster needs and the other was your nice and fast CD/DVD drive.
 
I have some Y cables for this situation. Provided only one drive is using it at a time, works well.
 
Hi everyone,
Thanks for all the help. I did see the y cords on ebay. I may leave it just the way it is, as long as I can use the burner.
I really want it to back up the Gateway Destination Drivers and applications in case this hard drive fails.
I just have to figure which files and drivers to copy so they can be reloaded.
 
I do believe that means Windows 98 does not have a driver installed that supports Digital Audio. I've seen it, but it's been a while.
You could be right. You need to install the Bus Master IDE drivers that back then came on a single floppy disk. Or, if available for that mainboard, the whole chipset driver set.

I would not use a splitter cable, as with those, you are sending audio to the other drive. This can damage the audio output stage of that drive.
 
Back
Top