Is your card PNP or does it have jumpers, Can you give me the model name of the card like BTC-XXXX, and not just the chip name.
Those cards IDE only work on IRQ 14 or 15. you cannot have IRQ sharing between the cards IDE controllers.
You know that your VLB card probably uses IRQ 14 and 15 or just one of them.
Then your Sound card cannot use those IRQ.
If the card is a PNP card, you might have to use software to configure the IRQ of the IDE port if it dont have a jumper.
If the card is not PNP than you should use IRQ 15 and use only IRQ 14 on the VLB and diesable IRQ 15 on the VLB.
This assumes that the IDE jumper on the Sound card is set to enable.

TLDR set VLB to IRQ 14 and disable IRQ 15 on VLB or in BIOS if it is used by onboard or somthing,
Configure IRQ 15 for the IDE of sound card and make sure IDE is enable.
If it is a PNP Card the same thing still apply.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-26, 16:49:

Is your card PNP or does it have jumpers, Can you give me the model name of the card like BTC-XXXX, and not just the chip name. […]
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Is your card PNP or does it have jumpers, Can you give me the model name of the card like BTC-XXXX, and not just the chip name.
Those cards IDE only work on IRQ 14 or 15. you cannot have IRQ sharing between the cards IDE controllers.
You know that your VLB card probably uses IRQ 14 and 15 or just one of them.
Then your Sound card cannot use those IRQ.
If the card is a PNP card, you might have to use software to configure the IRQ of the IDE port if it dont have a jumper.
If the card is not PNP than you should use IRQ 15 and use only IRQ 14 on the VLB and diesable IRQ 15 on the VLB.
The assumes that the IDE jumper on the Sound card is set to enable.

The only thing that might be a model number I can see is SC1003A. There isn't anything else identifiable on the card other than the chip (ESS audiodrive ES1869F)
The card is PNP - configured via ESSCFG program and IRQ 9 is it's default IRQ it seems - that is what the software outputs when you pick "show current settings"
Do you mean that using IRQ 9 is likely to be a problem?

This thread may be helpful - Re: Can't use IDE port on BTC 1857i card

The IRQ 14/15 part of what i was saying is based on those are the defualt IRQ for ide 1 and 2
So compatibility i am not sure, maybe a software or a driver always probes those IRQ looking for a controller.
ANd thats why it doesn't work in IRQ 9.
best of luck.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-26, 17:09:

The IRQ 14/15 part of what i was saying is based on those are the defualt IRQ for ide 1 and 2 So compatibility i am not sure, ma […]
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The IRQ 14/15 part of what i was saying is based on those are the defualt IRQ for ide 1 and 2
So compatibility i am not sure, maybe a software or a driver always probes those IRQ looking for a controller.
ANd thats why it doesn't work in IRQ 9.
best of luck.

Aha, thanks.
Will give an IRQ change a go...

Look at the other thread Grzyb linked , you might have to flash the card.

Changing to IRQ 12 (the config software didnt offer 14 or 15) with esscfg and that seems to have worked.
I ran msd.exe and looked at the IRQs in use, looked like IRQ 9 was being used by something in the system already so an IRQ conflict must have been the issue.
Thanks!

squelch41 wrote on 2020-08-26, 17:40:

Changing to IRQ 12 (the config software didnt offer 14 or 15) with esscfg and that seems to have worked.
I ran msd.exe and looked at the IRQs in use, looked like IRQ 9 was being used by something in the system already so an IRQ conflict must have been the issue.
Thanks!

IRQ 9 is used by ACPI on modern machines. If you can, it's best to preserve it for an MPU-401 port. Some titles expect a MIDI interface to be there with no way to manually specify an alternate.

OK, now I am more perplexed!

I changed the IRQ as discussed above and the VIDE-CDD.SYS can see the drive as DOS boots. All well and good.
I ran mscdex (mscdex /d:mscd001) and the system hung - managed to sort that my manually stating the drive IRQ and IO address in the vide-cdd.sys line of config.sys
DOS then mounts the drive as D but if I try and list the directory, I get CD103 error - saying the CD isnt ISO 9660 or high sierra format.
I have tried a number of CD-ROMs but get the same error including a 1996 cover CD from PC Format and a copy of theme hospital (so all age appropriate!)

If I use sushcdx rahter than mscdex, again the drive spins up with a DIR command but it just returns 'file not found'.

When I load windows 98, it can see the drive and clicking 'eject' will make the drive eject, but if I put a disc in, it says "drive not ready".
Audio CDs also not recognised.

When I run DIR in dos or try and open the drive in explorer, the drive does spin the disc up so it seems that some commands are getting to the drive.

I have tried setting the ESS card's IDE port to IRQ 10 and IRQ 12 and I have tried addresses 170 and 1E8 but this doesnt seem to make any differnet.

(RE: flashing the card commented on in the thread above - my card seems to be full PnP - I tried running the flash program in the archive in the linked thread but it says jumpers arent set for flashing and the card has no jumpers. It seems I can adjust IRQ and IO address with the ESS dos software and that seems to work fine)

Anyone got any pointers to where I need to go next? Surely fitting an optical drive isnt this hard 😀

Have you tried some other driver?
VIDE-CDD.SYS may have problems with some drives, you may have more luck with that OAKCDROM.SYS from the Windows 98SE boot diskette.

I will try that, but Windows 98 doesn't use the DOS driver?
If that is true, I'm not sure changing the dos driver will change things?

sounds like a dirty laser.

Warlord wrote on 2020-08-29, 15:03:

sounds like a dirty laser.

Reads fine if connected to my other PC - think the drive is fine

Grzyb wrote on 2020-08-29, 11:33:

Have you tried some other driver?
VIDE-CDD.SYS may have problems with some drives, you may have more luck with that OAKCDROM.SYS from the Windows 98SE boot diskette.

oakcdrom.sys cant see the drive at all on irq 10 or 12 even if manually specify with /p:170,12

Despite having no dos cd driver, win 98 still sees the drive and I can eject it through explorer but, again, cant list the drive content

Again, for sanity, checked the drive connected to the VLB ide controller as a slave - drive works fine - can list directory etc with mscdex using the vide-cdd. Sys driver

All seems to be pointing to the ide controller on the ess not being configured correctly?
(Ive tried the drive as master, slave and CS and tried both connectors on the IDE cable)

Solved it! Was the IDE cable!

Had tried two different cables, both 80 wire.
Had a 40 wire very short cable and that worked! Have a. Longer 40 wire that has a semi-broken plug and that worked too!

Would explain the partial success before. Seems the vlb card controller is fine with 80 wire cables but not the ESS card controller.

Victory! (at least so far!)

It seems to be very sensitive to cable length too -- hung after 1st DIR using the last connector on the IDE cable, using the slave connector, mostly works

FWIW, in the end, was the drive - the DVD-RW works flawlessly on my modern PC with a IDE->SATA adapter but not on the IDE of my 486 - at least not reliably.
Bought an IDE CD-ROM in ebay for £6 - works fine.
Quite why this should be the case I dont know! But such is the fun of building a 486 😀