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CD/DVD Drive Bios Setup Help For 386

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First post, by GabrielKnight123

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Im trying to install a CD/DVD drive for a 386 but the Bios does not automatically detect it probably because of the age of the Bios, there is an option to select cylinders/heads/sectors but all the drives I have here have no info about the C/H/S. The motherboard I have only has ISA busses and im using an I/O card to get a single IDE working with the HDD as Master and the CD/DVD drive to Slave, the HDD works but the CD/DVD drive does not get detected at boot or in the Bios im guessing I need a special I/O card or some settings in the Bios.

Reply 1 of 7, by keropi

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There is no need for the cd/dvd to be detected by the 386 bios - drivers in config/autoexec will pick it up and it will become usable

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Reply 2 of 7, by Jo22

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Since it is a 386, you can use a Win98SE start-up floppy (or emergency floppy) for testing.
It is bootable (has DOS 7.1) and contains drivers for both IDE and SCSI based CD/DVD drives.
You can't read DVDs with that, of course. Just CDs of any kind.

Edit: I assume, you've got a 1.44MB floppy drive in that PC.
If not, there are these Gotek floppy emulators which can be found for cheap..

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Reply 4 of 7, by ultimate386

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Are you using an add-in IDE controller card in that 386? I would be surprised if a CD/DVD drive worked with any IDE interface built into a 386 board.

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Reply 5 of 7, by yawetaG

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ultimate386 wrote:

Are you using an add-in IDE controller card in that 386? I would be surprised if a CD/DVD drive worked with any IDE interface built into a 386 board.

It merely needs a driver to work, detection by the BIOS is not required (of course, booting from the CD/DVD drive ain't possible).

Reply 6 of 7, by ultimate386

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Yes, I am aware that CD/DVD drives won't be detected by older bioses. I was under the impression though that ATAPI devices would not work on the original implementation of the ATA/IDE interface, even with a driver. In fact, I've dealt with more than a few systems where this has been the case. My Compaq Prolinea, for example, will absolutely not work with a CD/DVD drive on its built-in controller (tried for the first time in 1996, I think!).

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Reply 7 of 7, by bjwil1991

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yawetaG wrote:
ultimate386 wrote:

Are you using an add-in IDE controller card in that 386? I would be surprised if a CD/DVD drive worked with any IDE interface built into a 386 board.

It merely needs a driver to work, detection by the BIOS is not required (of course, booting from the CD/DVD drive ain't possible).

PloP boot loader can do just that. It wasn't until the Pentium systems (I'd say 1995 or so) supported the booting from a CD/DVD.

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