CD Player Questions

[Guest PCR]

Re: CD Player Questions

 

Frog wrote:

| PCR,

|

| I was going to send you a dir of my Win98SE CD, but I can't

| figure out how to make this happen. Can you enlighten me on how to

| make this happen? By the way, my CD device is drive D.

 

I see the question is already answered by glee & Galen...

 

(a) "START button, Run, MS-DOS Prompt".

(b) DIR D: /a /ogn > C:\Windows\Desktop\Dir.txt

 

That will put a root directory listing of D:\ to Dir.txt on the Desktop

sorted by name with directories on top.

 

Notes:

1. "DIR /?" shows all the options.

2. > Wipes Dir.txt first, or creates it if nonexistent.

3. >> Adds to Dir.txt, or creates it if nonexistent.

 

| Also, while I am talking about things I don't know how to do, is

| there some method for printing out a copy of the BIOS settings? If

| so, I can't figure that one out either.

 

As glee said, try the Prt Scrn key. If that fails, you must photograph

it.

 

| Thanks,

| Frog

|

| PCR wrote:

|> Frog wrote:

|> ...snip

|> | glee wrote:

|> |> Comments inline.....

|> |> "Frog" <frog@pond.com> wrote in message

|> |> news:uNtgyp9%23HHA.3400@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

|> |>>

|> |>>> Is the CD you are trying to boot from even

|> |>>> bootable? Unlike their WinXP CDs, and many 'Restore' CDs with

|> |>>> Win98SE that comes with 'Brand Name' machines from so called

|> |>>> OEM's ( Dell, Siemens, Acer, Compaq, etc... ), a

|> |>>> microsoft-issued Win98SE CD isn't bootable.

|> |>

|> |> A RETAIL Win98SE CD is not bootable, but many OEM Win98SE CDs are.

|> |

|> | I believe my Win98SE CD is an OEM copy. The only thing on this CD

|> | is Win98SE, and the disk has the following printed on it:

|> |

|> | For distribution with a new PC only.

|>

|> Mine is bootable (actually it is a two CD set), & both say: "For

|> distribution only with a Compaq PC". There is a big list of model

|> numbers on them too. Nowhere do I see the acronym "OEM".

|>

|> | For product support, contact the

|> | manufacturer of your PC.

|> | SECOND EDITION

|> | © 1981-1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

|> | Microsoft products are licensed to OEMs by Microsoft Licensing

|> | Inc., a wholly owned subsidery of Microsoft Corporation.

|> | 0499 Part No. X05 29232

|>

|> MS is on mine holding a partial copyright, but still not the acronym

|> "OEM".

|>

|> | I know that when I put this CD in the system, while in normal

|> | Windows mode, it immediately starts running. The first window is

|> | a menu of things you can do. Does that sound like an OEM copy?

|>

|> Mine won't do that. It just spins up & is accessible to Explorer. I

|> believe you must have an Autorun.inf on yours, which I don't. Here

|> is my full root directory. I am guessing the presence of the "BOOT*"

|> .bin's & .klk is what makes mine bootable...

|>

|> W:\>dir /a /on

|> Volume in drive W is I3006Q15CD0

|> Volume Serial Number is D0F9-CFDF

|> Directory of W:\

|>

|> BIN <DIR> 12-07-99 6:02p BIN

|> BOM <DIR> 12-07-99 6:48p BOM

|> BOOTCAT BIN 2,048 05-15-97 4:45p BOOTCAT.BIN

|> BOOTSECT BIN 1,474,560 11-17-99 3:57p BOOTSECT.BIN

|> BOOTSECT KLK 1,474,560 10-27-99 8:24p BOOTSECT.KLK

|> CD INI 43 12-08-99 2:22a CD.INI

|> COPYTOD <DIR> 12-08-99 2:27a COPYTOD

|> CPQDRV <DIR> 12-08-99 2:27a CPQDRV

|> CPQS <DIR> 12-07-99 6:02p CPQS

|> DATA <DIR> 12-07-99 6:02p DATA

|> IMG INI 32 12-08-99 2:22a IMG.INI

|> LFS TXT 8 12-08-99 3:00a LFS.TXT

|> QRIA <DIR> 11-24-99 5:42p QRIA

|> 6 file(s) 2,951,251 bytes

|> 7 dir(s) 0 bytes free

|>

|>

|> ...snip

 

--

Thanks or Good Luck,

There may be humor in this post, and,

Naturally, you will not sue,

Should things get worse after this,

PCR

pcrrcp@netzero.net

[Guest PCR]

Re: CD Player Questions

 

Frog wrote:

| I decided to take most of the weekend off and away from this

| computer...what an unbelievable and fatiguing process this has been

| for me. I think my 30GB hard drive is working again, and that makes

| me very happy...so happy, in fact, that I made a new image of my hard

| drive using Image for DOS. I know that I will likely be back to this

| discussion group, as I attempt to recover my data from the 120GB

| external hard drive back to my internal 120GB hard drive. Make no

| mistake, I will have my 30GB hard drive, the one that we have been

| repairing, out of the system when I start this process. Yes, I will

| make sure that it is set up as a master on the cable as is my 30GB

| hard drive.

|

| I want to end this thread with a big thank-you to you and all of

| the others who responded to my call for help. You all are a great

| group of people.

 

You are welcome. That is a good idea to preserve & protect the 30 GBer

while playing with the other! Keep us informed.

 

| Frog

|

|

|

| ... et al. wrote:

|> Frog wrote:

|>

|>> ... et al. wrote:

|>>

|>>> #1) Futile exercise?

|>>

|>> I'm starting to think that it may be a futile exercise--I hope not,

|>> though.

|>

|> Trying to boot from the CD you were trying to boot from, perhaps.

|> Getting your working IDE Devices to work right in Win98SE and

|> allowing you to configure the BIOS to allow you to boot from a CD ..

|> i think, that by removing the malworking Samsung-Drive, you've

|> accomplished that already.

|> I'll just make a few comments, since we have glee's response.

|>

|> [snip]

|>

|>

|>>> You have a CD-Drive that was removed because some person couldn't

|>>> get it to work, and it is now working only intermittently for you

|>>> and with disappearing IDE devices in the Win98 Device Manager

|>>> depending on different BIOS settings. ¡Until you have everything

|>>> else working fine, remove this device from the equation!

|>>> Disconnect Data- and Power-cables from the Samsung Drive. Have

|>>> only the Plextor CD-Drive, jumpered as master, as a single device

|>>> on the second IDE-channel.

|>>

|>> I disconnected the Samsung device from the equation. The Plextor

|>> device is now connected to the end connection on the ribbon cable.

|>> I then entered the BIOS and designated the boot sequence to be the

|>> floppy, Plextor, and then the hard drive. The computer was then

|>> restarted, and no problems were noted in the Device Manager.

|>

|> See, this was all it took. And i think that if you try booting with a

|> bootable CD now, that this should work.

|>

|> [snip]

|>

|>

|>>>

|>>> #3) I don't know if you took apart and rebuilt the hardware in the

|>>> aftermath of its 'meltdown',

|>>

|>> No, I changed nothing inside of my computer except re-placing the

|>> 120GB hard drive with the 30GB hard drive. Oh yes, and I added the

|>> Samsung CD device back into the system--that device is again

|>> disconnected from the system.

|>

|> [snip]

|>

|>

|>> The Samsung CD device (not presently connected to the system) is

|>> set up as Slave.

|>>

|>> The Plextor CD device is set up as Master.

|>

|> This was the important stuff. I thought there was a risk you had had

|> first one CD player in the machine alone and then the other, and that

|> both were still jumpered as master when you now tried to use them

|> together on the same IDE channel. Fine..

|>

|>

|>> NOTE: The 120GB hard drive that was in my computer, when I arrived

|>> home from the computer store, does not display a setup plan. It is

|>> a Western Digital model WD1200BB-23RDAO product. I looked at

|>> another Western Digital hard drive (not the same model number),

|>> and, if both settings are the same for both hard drives, it was set

|>> as Master (center two pins jumpered).

|>

|> Glee posted a link for jumper-settings for Western Digital branded

|> HDD. For the time when you put yours back in some machine, i just

|> want to stress that how to jumper these differs from most other

|> brands of HDD's in that there is one Jumper-setting when used as

|> slave, and *two* different one when used as master. One when there

|> is a slave-device present and another jumper-setting when there is

|> no Slave-device present on that IDE-channel.

|>

|>

|>>

|>>> <http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS.html>

|>>>

<http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80.html>

|>>>

<http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable.html>

|>>

|>> I will read these ASAP.

|>

|> For most of the questions you asked in your post, concerning cables,

|> master and slave positions, the things that i've snipped, i suggest

|> that you read the texts on the links i posted, look at the pictures

|> there and compare that information with you own hardware. You will

|> know as much about these things as i do.

|>

|> [snip]

|>

|>

|>>

|>> The HHD ST330621A is shown on the Main page as the Primary Master

|>> with Type Auto. I looked up what Auto means in the motherboard

|>> book, and here is what I found:

|>>

|>> Quote

|>>

|>> Type [Auto]

|>> Select [Auto] to automatically detect an IDE hard disk drive. If

|>> automatic detection is successful, the correct values will be

|>> filled in for the remaining fields on the sub-menu. If automatic

|>> detection fails, your hard disk drive may be too old or too new.

|>> You can try updating your BIOS or enter the IDE hard disk drive

|>> parameters manually.

|>>

|>> Unquote

|>>

|>> The above makes me wonder if I was right in changing the Samsung

|>> Device from Auto to CD-ROM on the main page. I believe it should

|>> be Auto, if/when I re-install this device.

|>

|> I don't see why you think it *should* be Auto.

|> It was only because you had problems we didn't know the cause behind

|> that i also want to point out that location in the BIOS Setup as a

|> variable for you to check out. (On my similar motherboard) I have it

|> set to 'Auto' for all four IDE positions, so that when i change

|> drives around i don't have to remember to go there and change

|> anything.

|>

|> In the end all is well .. well except if you are a Samsung CD-Drive

|> located in your household and have just been taken off life-support.

 

--

Thanks or Good Luck,

There may be humor in this post, and,

Naturally, you will not sue,

Should things get worse after this,

PCR

pcrrcp@netzero.net

[Guest ... et al.]

Re: CD Player Questions

 

Frog wrote:

> Also, while I am talking about things I don't know how to do, is

> there some method for printing out a copy of the BIOS settings? If so,

> I can't figure that one out either.

 

Useful as it would be i don't know why, by popular demand, it

isn't available for all motherboard BIOS's since this question

comes up now and again.

 

But we happen to be in luck using a Asustek A7Vxxx motherboards:

<http://www.a7vtroubleshooting.com/info/bios/index.htm#6a>

 

Unfortunately Asustek's German FTP-server is no more and i don't

know if they have [CMOS.exe] available somewhere else. So if you

want to try it you will have to find it somewhere. Here it is

from me for a little while:

 

found inside this file i once downloaded from 'ftp.asuscom.de':

<ftp://guest:guest@83.254.17.131/Pub/aflash214.zip> (70292 Bytes)

or already extracted:

<ftp://guest:guest@83.254.17.131/Pub/CMOS.EXE> (48195 Bytes)

 

Place the [CMOS.exe] file directly under 'C:\'

Boot to DOS using a Boot-floppy or by pressing [F8] during the boot.

Run the program like the next line:

C:\CMOS.exe /L BIOSDump.txt

Restart into Windows and locate the new [bIOSDump.txt] file.

 

The output looks like the following (there are 185 'items' in my

A7V333 BIOS):

 

[signature]

Usage=CMOS.EXE

MB_Model=A7V333

Built_Date=10/29/02

 

[item 1]

Item_Name=Legacy Diskette A

CMOS_Mask=00F0

Location=10

CMOS_Value=04

Range=00 - 05

Description=As the followings

Current=1.44M, 3.5 in.

00=None

01=360K , 5.25 in.

02=1.2M , 5.25 in.

03=720K , 3.5 in.

04*=1.44M, 3.5 in.

05=2.88M, 3.5 in.

 

[item 2]

Item_Name=Legacy Diskette B

CMOS_Mask=000F

Location=10

CMOS_Value=00

Range=00 - 05

Description=As the followings

Current=None

00*=None

01=360K , 5.25 in.

02=1.2M , 5.25 in.

03=720K , 3.5 in.

04=1.44M, 3.5 in.

05=2.88M, 3.5 in.

 

.... et cetera

 

 

--

Nah-ah. I'm staying out of this. ... Now, here's my opinion.

 

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