The IDE port probably does not support ATAPI. There's a reason why most CD-ROMs up to 1994 used a proprietary interface (or SCSI). IDE without ATAPI does not support anything else than hard disks.

Are you loading the CD-ROM drivers?

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Are you loading the CD-ROM drivers?

A CD rom needs drivers?

respect2759 wrote:

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Are you loading the CD-ROM drivers?

A CD rom needs drivers?

Yes.

Try writing a DOS bootdisk that has CD support and boot from that to test if the drive is being detected correctly. Then you'd just need to copy the driver & executable (ie. mscdex) over to your C drive and configure them in config.sys & autoexec.bat

The windows 98 bootdisk has ATAPI CD-ROM drive support, but all you need is the OAKCDROM.SYS driver and you can stick that in the config.sys of a regular DOS bootdisk.

BIOSes in pre pentium systems do not detect CDROMs and, here's the important part - it doesn't matter

The DOS CDROM driver (I recommend VIDE-CDD.SYS) will scan master and slave on both channels and pick up the drive.

The BIOS 100% doesn't matter

maxtherabbit wrote:

BIOSes in pre pentium systems do not detect CDROMs and, here's the important part - it doesn't matter

The DOS CDROM driver (I recommend VIDE-CDD.SYS) will scan master and slave on both channels and pick up the drive.

The BIOS 100% doesn't matter

This is correct. ATAPI is implemented by the driver; the BIOS doesn't need to detect the drive. Some drivers support as many as 4 IDE interfaces when looking for an attached drive. The reason SCSI and proprietary interfaces were common in this era was because the systems didn't necessarily even have available IDE ports. ATAPI support in BIOS enabled "detecting" CD-ROMs (mostly cosmetic, since you still need a driver) as a coincidence along with supporting larger modern hard drives.

Thanks for advices, I found a soundcard with IDE and its compatible with Mitsumi, so I will try that. I am a hardware guy, so its easier for me this way 😀

respect2759 wrote:

Thanks for advices, I found a soundcard with IDE and its compatible with Mitsumi, so I will try that. I am a hardware guy, so its easier for me this way 😀

You still need a driver to be loaded in dos...

respect2759 wrote:

Thanks for advices, I found a soundcard with IDE and its compatible with Mitsumi, so I will try that. I am a hardware guy, so its easier for me this way 😀

Under DOS, regardless which interface you use, you still require a device driver to recognise the CD-ROM drive.
Since your CD-ROM is from 1997, it most certainly is an IDE interface but, could possibly also be SCSI?.
Just be careful in hooking up your 1997 Mitsumi IDE drive to an older sound card from 1991-1992 that still used the proprietary Mitsumi interface. They are not compatible with each other.

The separate Panasonic / Sony / Mitsumi interfaces died out with 4x drives, if I recall... connecting an IDE drive to an old style interface may damage one or both.

If the CDROM has options of master/slave it is definitely IDE.
You may have problems with older IDE hard drives which predate standardisation of Master/Slave - some have options for different standards, or require a specific setting for "slave present"

Matth79 wrote:

The separate Panasonic / Sony / Mitsumi interfaces died out with 4x drives, if I recall... connecting an IDE drive to an old style interface may damage one or both.

If the CDROM has options of master/slave it is definitely IDE.
You may have problems with older IDE hard drives which predate standardisation of Master/Slave - some have options for different standards, or require a specific setting for "slave present"

The HDD has no jumper settings its an old quantum fireball

Err, pretty much all IDE drives had jumper settings as far as I recall. I've owned fireballs, and all of them had at least a jumper to control master/slave.

The separate Panasonic / Sony / Mitsumi interfaces died out with 4x drives, if I recall... connecting an IDE drive to an old style interface may damage one or both.

Pretty much. There were 3X drives, but I think only NEC made them and they were all SCSI. I've only ever seen 1X and 2X drives with a proprietary interface. What really throws me off are those obscure 2X drives that had an ATAPI interface.