jforrest1980 wrote:

I distinctly remember it saying driver provided by oak technology

That would be your CD-ROM driver, but there is no such driver being loaded by the autoexec.bat and config.sys you have provided above. In fact, you are loading very little in the configuration you have provided above and there should not be much text at all.

Is there a way to slow down the boot screen so I can read everything?

There are numerous tricks depending on exactly what you need; sometimes it's easiest just to hit the PAUSE/BREAK key on your keyboard, though on a fast computer the timing can be tricky. In the AUTOEXEC.BAT you can insert the word PAUSE on its own line after each existing line; with config.sys it's a little more tricky.

OK, I just took some pictures. I will post them below. I do not see anything SoundBlaster related, but I will post them anyway in case it will help. Thanks so much for all your help. I know it must be frustrating at times when things are pretty simple for you. There was one final line of text I received. But it mentioned nothing of Creative or SoundBlaster, I'm pretty certain it was my hard drive.

how many CD drives do you have? are you loading a SCSI CD driver and an IDE one?

With just that line you have I don't think anything would come up about the sound blaster. I don't know, I never used a Live! in pure DOS but I know with the SB16 and awe cards I have to load drivers and a PnP manager.

I only have one CD drive. Actually it says on the front of it that it is a dvd drive. I also have a 3.5 floppy drive. Those are the only 2 drives I have installed on this system that can be accessed from the front. The last pic says number of drives = 1. So I do not think it is loading up another cd drive. I did completely wipe XP off this system and installed Windows 98SE, and it was used. So I am uncertain if there was ever another drive on it. But I wiped it so I wouldn't think it would recognize another. But I don't know much about DOS boot screens. I wish I did.

As I stated before: if you are actually booting using the config.sys and autoexec.bat you previously provided, you are not loading a CD-ROM driver. Whatever you took a picture of before is not the autoexec.bat and config.sys you are actually using and that is why you are not seeing anything Sound Blaster related.

Aren't you booting from a floppy disk in these new pictures? (That's what the "A:\>" prompt in your last picture suggests.) You do realize that the floppy disk has its own completely different autoexec.bat and config.sys that is completely independent of whatever is on your hard drive, right?

the "ASPI manager for DOS" and the "ASPI CD-ROM driver for DOS" and all that Adaptec stuff I think is SCSI drivers so I was just wondering.

I've lost track of what were even trying to achieve here. are you still trying to get DOS games to run with sound via the real DOS mode on a win98 machine with a Live! card installed or are we past that? All I can say to that is I had no issues getting a Live! card to emulated the sound blaster for games like Duke3d when executed through windows. i'm guessing if you want to use a Live! card through true DOS you need to install DOS drivers or a PnP manager or both?

now you said you picked up a board with an ISA slot right? I'm telling you if you want a simple setup that "just works" with real hardware just grab a cheap sound blaster 16. the drivers and PnP manager are widely available and the card just works with very little issues. if you want to get into clearer sounding card or use wavetable boards and stuff down the road you can tackle that issue then.

Actually I did not realize that. I thought the boot disk just allowed dos to start up. That is nice to know. I will try that method you suggested now.

I did get another pc. And I am going to upgrade it and try it out. But I still want to try and get this PC working. Sorry for the confusion earlier about saying forget about this issue. These kind of things are on my mind all day and once I start trying to figure something out its hard to just let it go.

jforrest1980 wrote:

Actually I did not realize that. I thought the boot disk just allowed dos to start up. That is nice to know. I will try that method you suggested now.

I did get another pc. And I am going to upgrade it and try it out. But I still want to try and get this PC working. Sorry for the confusion earlier about saying forget about this issue. These kind of things are on my mind all day and once I start trying to figure something out its hard to just let it go.

I understand I do the same thing with PC problems sometimes

get rid of the "NOVCPI" line in your CONFIG file, I think the SB Live! uses that. make sure no other devices are using IRQ 7. You can always try IRQ 5 and 10 and see if that works and lastly trying looking for a creative PnP manager for DOS and running it and at least seeing if it detect the card in DOS.
Id also change the H6 to H5 in the setblaster line to make it a bit more standard

It works great booting up dos with f8. I got a shareware doom to play with sound and sound fx. Sounds so different than my steam version. I however could not get the mouse to work, and trying to install duke3d looks like I have no cd Rom support. Tried d and e. I have a feeling the mouse should be easy, but not so much the Generic IDE DISK TYPE 01 CD Rom. I'm going to research tomorrow and hopefully figure that out, as unlike the dos boot Dick I see no boot with cd Rom support option.

Sorry I gave you all the run around. I feel like a real dumbass with this dos stuff. Bit if you ever need help changing a flyback in a arcade monitor or soldering battery holders in cartridge games I'm your man. Now I'm going to play baldurs gate for 30 min before bed. Thanks everyone!

you neeed DOS mouse drivers for mouse support in DOS

Ctmouse is generally the favored drivers for this. http://cutemouse.sourceforge.net/

I personally use GSCDROM drivers for my CD drivers

You can press F8 during "Starting MS-Dos" and confitm Line by Line.

But you have to press the Key at the right Time. just press it very often.