Storage Technology Content

CD/DVD Software and Drivers

After you’ve physically installed the drive, you’re ready for the last step—installing the drivers and

other CD-ROM/DVD-ROM software. As usual, this process can be simple with a Plug and Play operating

system such as Windows 9x or later. In that case the drivers for Windows are automatically

installed. Things are different, however, if you need to access the drive after booting from a floppy,

such as when installing an operating system, running diagnostics, or running DOS.

For a CD or DVD drive to function in a floppy (or CD) boot environment, several drivers might be

necessary:

An ATAPI host adapter driver (not needed for SCSI drives). This driver is included with your motherboard,

or you can use the generic ATAPI drivers found on Windows 98 and later startup disks.

SCSI adapter drivers (not needed for ATAPI drives). Most SCSI cards include these drivers, or you

can use the generic versions included on Windows 98 and later startup disks.

MSCDEX. Microsoft CD Extensions, which is included with DOS 6.0 and later. It is also built in

to Windows 95 and later as the CDFS VxD.

You will need one of the first two drivers (ATAPI or SCSI) as well as the third one for the drive to work

in a floppy (or CD) boot environment. Generic ATAPI and SCSI drivers can be found on the Windows

98 and newer startup disks. Rather than mess with creating custom CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT

files, I recommend you merely boot from a Windows 98 or newer startup floppy because each time

you boot from these, the proper drivers load and autodetect the CD/DVD drives, after which the

drives are accessible.

Using a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive that conforms to the ATAPI specification under Windows does

not require you to do anything. All the driver support for these drives is built in to Windows 9x,

including the ATAPI driver and the CDFS VxD driver.

If you are running a SCSI CD-ROM drive under Windows 9x, you still need the ASPI driver that goes

with your drive. The ASPI driver for your drive usually comes from the drive manufacturer and is

included with the drive in most cases. However, by arrangement with hardware manufacturers,

Windows 9x typically includes the ASPI driver for most SCSI host adapters and also automatically

runs the CDFS VxD virtual device driver. In some rare cases, you might have to install an updated driver

you have obtained from the manufacturer.

When you install a PnP SCSI host adapter in a Windows 9x system, simply booting the computer

should cause the operating system to detect, identify, and install drivers for the new device. When the

driver for the host adapter is active, the system should detect the SCSI devices connected to the

adapter and again load the appropriate drivers automatically.