IDE Drive detection \ VOGONS

IDE Drive detection

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First post, by Aui

Posted on 2026-05-21, 23:59

Aui Offline

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Hi everyone, I have a question regarding initializing a CD-Rom. The drive is connected to the IDE controller of a SB16 and initialized with
"DEVICEHIGH=C:\DRIVERS\VIDECDD.SYS /D:OPTICAL" in the config sys and
"C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:OPTICAL" in the autoexec.bat (all as per Phils Bootdisk)

the problem is that the drive NEVER gets initialized after a cold start (or reset)

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but ALWAYS works after a second soft reset

The attachment 20260521_112104.jpg is no longer available

Any ideas / suggestions ?

Thanks

Reply 1 of 5, by jakethompson1

Posted on 2026-05-22, 00:25

jakethompson1 Offline

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Jumperless/ISAPNP cards will de-configure themselves on reset. If your sound card is assigned its resources via a config.sys driver, put videide.sys after that driver rather than before so that this reboot isn't required. If it's assigned its resources via a configuration program or TSR loaded in autoexec.bat (including unisound), you'll have to use a DEVLOAD or similar style utility to load videide.sys from autoexec.bat (before mscdex).

Also: using /D:OPTICAL means that you cannot access a file or directory with the name "optical" anywhere (hard drive or floppy included), this is why typical device names were along the lines of MSCD000

Reply 2 of 5, by Aui

Posted on 2026-05-22, 06:22

Aui Offline

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Perfect - thanks a lot

Reply 3 of 5, by AncapDude

Posted on 2026-05-22, 09:45

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These device names are reserved words in all filesystems? Wow, didn't know that.

Reply 4 of 5, by konc

Posted on 2026-05-22, 10:02

konc Offline

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AncapDude wrote on 2026-05-22, 09:45:

These device names are reserved words in all filesystems? Wow, didn't know that.

What you specify as device name becomes a reserved device name just like CON, PRN etc, which means this name also cannot be used as a file or directory name.

Reply 5 of 5, by Aui

Posted on 2026-05-22, 23:16

Aui Offline

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Well, I dont usually call any directories "optical" but who knows, so I changed it to MSCD000

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