cd rom

[boltsinuts]

Hello, I jus registered! Nice site! Lots of info. I have a bunch of pc problems..but 1 atta time. Gateway p5-90 pc..1.6 gig hd..has 128 mg...shows on boot up..but shows 64 in win95? Anyway her cdrom isnt listed in device manager.. I tried installing my 4spd goldstar that worked into hers still no dice...now what? i put a 32spd teac in my nec...works fine..dont understand.

[commodsquad]

I might be totally wrong here becuz my memory isnt as good as it used to be (no pun intended) but I think that I saw somewhere that win95 could only address 64Mb of memory??? or was that 2.1 gigs of harddrive space that is on my mind?? sorry if I'm not much help here....but you might want to check your bios configs to see if the cdrom is being detected; dont know what bios set up you have but you might want to look and see if there is an auto setting and put it to that...and check out the master/slave jumpers on the drives to be sure you have them set right....hope that helps....
also I forgot to mention...did you try going into safe mode and doing a check thru the device manager to see if there are any exclamation marks or duplicate entries??

[This message has been edited by commodsquad (edited 12-19-1999).]

[Marty]

Does the cdrom show in my computer and work?
Does hard disk controller show any problems?
If you are loading a real mode driver in autoexec.bat it should be remed out.

[Axel]

C-squad - win95 can see all the ram the typical PC can have installed, but will only "effectively" use the first 64 that are there. And you're right about 2.1 GB HDD - without software or partitions, win95 will only see drives of 2.1 GB or less.

Now - on to the problems - something's wrong with the RAM - might be a parity error or you've got different speeds or makes of RAM in there. If the OS can't see it, doesn't matter what the boot sequence sees. I'm guessing you've got 4 RAM slots on that board and all of them have SIMMS in them. - try running with only two sticks - them run with the other two and see if the system will even start.

The CD-ROM - check and reseat the IDE cable at both ends - make sure you've got the cable on the correct way - typically the red lead is pin one and should be closest to the power plug on the drive. I'd also check to see that the master/slave/cable select jumper is set correctly on the drive. Might just need a new ide cable.
The CD-ROM should work of native win95 drivers, I believe.

Try booting in safe mode ( <F8> the second you see "starting windows95" in the boot sequence ) - then go into the device manager and if there are any listings for a CD-ROM drive that doesn't match yours - remove it.

So - start there and let us know how it goes.

[boltsinuts]

Okay, thanks for the responses. I installed a second hard drive with 340 meg. I made that the master and her 1.083 gig, the slave.
I formatted the d.[original now slave]. Then I tried to install win 95 from my zip drive but no dice cuz d had last cluster bad so again no dice. I tried fdisk/mbr...uhuh. So I used disk manager, since it worked so well I used it on c: [the new master - 340]. I loaded win95 fine on c drive, using zip drive. Her original win95 disks were corrupted and overwrote her existing files for win95 so I couldnt boot to win95. Anyway now the bootup and win95 show 128 megs ram but still no cd rom and now no sound card...HELP..please...bty...Happy New Year

[boltsinuts]

Well gents n ladies,
Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I perused your other posts...I downloaded a cdrom.exe 4 dos from some link in here and voila works!!! It still isnt listed under device manager but it shows under my computer and works fine but doesnt auto-run...anyway now I am thinkin I should load win98 on her original drive which is now d drive and see if that recognizes everything cuz sound card still doesnt work..if that works then will make d master and c slave and back up sys files from new c[d] to new d [c] then use small 340 meg for backing up all crucial data and keep win 95 on it jus in case? Let me know if this is good or nutty idea?

[boltsinuts]

Well since no one answered my last post, i went with my own solution. Undid c: plugged in d: [made it master]. Installed win98. Got everything running fine , even fixed controller errors and cdrom now shows in device manager. Sound card still didnt work, then of course g/f tells me her sound card is from gateway 2 not creative sound blaster that she had drivers for so went to there site and downloaded new drivers. Alls well!!!
Thanks for the support, now I guess u can close this thread!