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Freedos 1.3 - external usb cd/dvd rom drive

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First post, by Robhalfordfan

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hello all

I am new to freedos and been trying get my external usb disc drive to work on my samsung nc-10 netbook .

The CD boots when netbook starts up and able to install freedos to ssd , no problem
When it restarts and it boots off ssd, the usb external disc drive doesn't work
trying find on google how to install usb drivers that would work with an external disc drive but google like return result about booting from usb stick (which is not what i want)

strange thing - when plug in a usb stick before starting the netbook, freedos will see it a drive D but the disc drive still isn't seen

is there a way to get an external usb disc drive to work on freedos

Reply 1 of 4, by Geri

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when the computer boots from the disc, the bios will emulate it as an ide dvd drive and depending on the boot type, the floppy portion will be emulated as an a: regular floppy disk drive.

if the system is not booting from the disc, then there is no emulation.

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Reply 2 of 4, by Robhalfordfan

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Geri wrote on 2025-02-14, 22:32:

when the computer boots from the disc, the bios will emulate it as an ide dvd drive and depending on the boot type, the floppy portion will be emulated as an a: regular floppy disk drive.

if the system is not booting from the disc, then there is no emulation.

that is the strange thing, it boots from the live cd and installs no issues as the netbook has bios level usb boot

it is only when it rebooted and booted off the ssd, the usb disc drive isnt seen and tried a few different drivers and no luck so far

when i plug in usb stick before booting up freedos, it sees the usb stick and puts it drive D

Reply 3 of 4, by javispedro1

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FreeDOS uses a driver called " eltorito.sys " to support reading the CDROM using the BIOS whatever the eltorito emulation mode is (even in no emulation).

However, most BIOSes will NOT expose a CDROM through int13h _at all_ unless you boot from it. So eltorito.sys will only be useful when you boot from CDROM. This is a well-known limitation.

So for anything else, you need to set up a DOS CDROM driver. Given its a USB drive, it may be complicated . But I suggest you Google around for that. Try FreeDOS' CDROM.BAT detection routine (albeit I don't remember if it ships any USB compatible driver), or USBASPI.SYS, or one of the USB stacks around, etc.

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