CD ROM DRIVERS NOT LOADED

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I want to reformat the hard drive on a 486 system. I am starting the system with a WIN 98 startup disk and opting to load the cd rom drivers. However, I get an error message saying that it can not find the cd drive. It then continues to startup but the cd drive is not operable. I need the cd drive in order to install WIN 98.

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I’d bet a dollar that the CD-ROM in that system requires specific drivers to load. The ones that come on the Windows boot disk are generic drivers and work with most hardware – but not all. There’s a nice (dated, but nice) piece at Fred Langa’s website on how to do this. You’ll need to find the appropriate CD-ROM drivers first…..check using Google for these.

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Thanks Mark – I went to Langa’s site and will try his suggestion. But I have a question for you – I have another CD drive that does work from the generic drivers from the startup disk. What if I used that disk to load WIN 98 and then re-connected the old cd drive and loaded a driver for it that I found on the internet. That seems to be a simpler process. What do you think?

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If you want to go to the trouble of hoooking up the other unit, that should work OK. If the gods of computing are smiling upon you then Win98 should recognize the older unit and access it with the protected 32-bit drivers, which is ultimately what you want to happen anyway.

Just be aware that you are introducing a variable into your installation, and variables can sometimes mean frustration if you aren’t suitably prepared!!

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