CDR101 not ready reading on DOS 6.22

[BC_Programmer]

I see now that we may have somewhat gone off-track, as the CD-ROM drive was installed properly in the Original Post, and it's having issues copying files.

Using OAKCDROM.SYS would certainly be a troubleshooting step, but based on the Original Post it seems like the disc containing the backup data is degraded or damaged.

Also if the Drive is an earlier CD-ROM drive it may have difficulties reading burned disks.

[Geek-9pm]

Than k you, Salmon Trout. The info you posted is the rint stuff.

The error message the OP sees may be an due to a incorrect parameter in the CONFIG.SYS file. Just now I tried to boot up my DOS 6.22 boot CD and I got an error message. It could not find the CD-ROM. Nothing wrong with the drive. Just the symbolic name could not be assigned to a drive letter.  I have too many partitions on my hard drive, so it could not  find the drive. 

Sorry about the confusion for links I gave. There are at least two sites that have ISO images of versions of MS-DOS a that go a USB or CD.

[smatthew]

Hello,

Thank you all for your help. I switched the drive out with another one and was able to find the driver for that specific drive, so that problem is fixed. I am now having an issue with the software itself. The company used a software protection device which plugs into the printer port, we have this, however, the software doesn't acknowledge that the device is plugged in. I don't know if the device is bad or what, but the original company has been bought by another and the new company doesn't work with the older instruments (ours is probably 30 years old), so I know I am on my own trying to solve this problem. Do any of you have experience with these devices, is there a way to bypass using it?

Again thank you all for your help
Sam

[BC_Programmer]

For my work we deal with an older Mainframe OS called THEOS, it has similar hardware dongles which it calls "Software Portals" that are needed for the OS to boot. In it's case there is no workaround.

The Parallel Port of course needs to be enabled in the BIOS and further the Parallel Port Dongles usually require the Extended Parallel Port capability, you can usually find those options in the system CMOS Setup/BIOS Screens.

[Geek-9pm]

The company used a software protection device which plugs into the printer port, we have this,

That was awhile back.
Those devices would work at the lowest machine code level and have no way to use another port or interface. You have to know exactly which port and what mode.
Somewhere in the documentation there would have been some details about which printer port to use.

Does the OP have any idea about what model PC was used  originally?