I use the original wing commander prophecy cdroms for testing, they are supposed to be read from ANY cd/dvdrom on the world 😀

unfortunately the 386 can't boot from cdrom, and trying to use the plop boot manager just causes an instant reboot of the computer

you can boot from CD-ROM if it's SCSI 😉

ah go away with that SCSI shit... even if it is silent I don't want to load three (!) config.sys device drivers to get it running :p

actually, the only drivers you would have to load for SCSI would be devices such as CD-ROM drives and scanners
hard drives don't need drivers as they go off the SCSI BIOS 😀

what's the big deal anyway as long as you load the drivers into upper memory?

well the real problem is that I don't have any free slot for a SCSI controller 😀

well if you converted to all SCSI, you'll take out that IDE card 🤣
the AHA-1542 was one awesome ISA SCSI card... BIOS and built in floppy controller 😀

yeah, and buying new SCSI HDD and new DVD-ROM, and then data migration from the IDE HDD to the SCSI HDD, no thanks :p

new? just buy used! 😁

I always use SCSI on my old machines too... I have an Adaptec 1542CF in my 386, a 2842A in my VLB 486, a TMC-850 in my XT, and four spare 1542Bs. It makes life a lot easier, not having to deal with old CHS limits and being able to boot from CDs. And it's quite a bit faster on ISA systems than IDE, too.

But, the thing is, I already have a couple dozen SCSI hard drives laying around, a few internal and external CD drives, a couple Zip drives, a box full of cables, terminators and adapters, and a long-standing familiarity with the 'SCSI voodoo' that's often required to make it all work. The advantages of SCSI are somewhat offset when you don't have any of the necessary parts and you're not accustomed to working with it.

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

And it's quite a bit faster on ISA systems than IDE, too.

I don't think so, they both hit the end of the ISA bottleneck

Hello, I use this driver for DVD with DOS
I managed to read files on DVD but you need SHSUCDX instead of MSCDEX
MSCDEX has bug with lowercase filenames on DVD

schlang wrote:

Old Thrashbarg wrote:

And it's quite a bit faster on ISA systems than IDE, too.

I don't think so, they both hit the end of the ISA bottleneck

only if your IDE controller is efficient, but that's not usually the case

good SCSI controllers like the AHA-1542 has bus mastering which makes a world of difference on a slow CPU like the 386

StickByDos wrote:

Hello, I use this driver for DVD with DOS
I managed to read files on DVD but you need SHSUCDX instead of MSCDEX
MSCDEX has bug with lowercase filenames on DVD

thanks, but no luck 🙁

you mind telling us what controller you're using? 😀

it's a promise eidemax controller.

BUT: I found another DVD drive, a NEC 3520 DVD-RW, it is recognized without problems:

😕 🙄

ok now I really want to know why... I just tested another CD drive, an AOpen CD-956E, it is also NOT recognized...

does somebody knows what the (ATAPI?!) differences are between these drives?

from what I understand, the early promise controller BIOSes are just buggy... have you tried the XTIDE BIOS with this controller?

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0EIN/i … _9/ai_20211565/

The EIDEMAX allows users to instantly upgrade any PC system -- PCI, VESA or ISA -- to EIDE compatibility and allows an existing IDE controller to connect drives up to 8.4GB. EIDEMAX also provides 80 percent improved 16-bit ISA bus transfers. Users may connect ATAPI CD-ROM drives or other devices to EIDEMAX. The EIDEMAX is offered at a manufacturer's suggested retail of $39.95 with a two year limited warranty. Consumers can also find EIDEMAX at Fry's Electronics, Doppler, Micro Center.

Well it sounds like it should work with ATAPI.... But maybe it is flaky huh? I had an EIDEMAX way back but I never tried putting an optical drive on it.

I did try putting a CDROM on a Promise Ultra 66 and that didn't work very well so I've avoided putting ATAPI devices on PCI IDE cards since.

TheMAN wrote:

from what I understand, the early promise controller BIOSes are just buggy... have you tried the XTIDE BIOS with this controller?

my eidemax has bios version 1.17, is there an update available?
how can I use/flash the XTIDE bios?

I think what you need to do is get a EPROM chip and a EPROM burner
https://code.google.com/p/xtideuniversalbios/