Changing 'A' prompt to CD drive prompt

[LilguycatX]

      When booting with a start up disk - Win 98, Norton rescue or 'restart in MS-Dos mode'-- into the dos mode, I can get an "A" drive prompt.  I can change that to my "C" drive prompt (and also my "D" & "E" prompts as I have my hard drive partitioned into three drives).  However, I can't change it to my Zip drive ("F") or my CD drive ("G").  If there a way to do this?  The purpose being to access one of those drives to run a virus check such as Symantec's Pre-Scan available from their website (the program will not fit on 3 1/2" floppies so I have to use a R-RW CD or Zip disk.  Plus, at one time in the past when I also was running MS-Dos and Dosshell under Win 3.11 I could do all of this.  What can I do to access my Zip & CD drives after booting into Win98 dos?  Thanks for any help or references you can give me.  Tom
     PS>  When I am in windows 98 and bring up the MS-Dos Prompt program, I can access  both my hard drives and my Zip/CD drives, but not when I boot up in dos.

[Computer_Commando]

You need to add some files to your startup disk (A).
oakcdrom.sys
mscdex.exe

Add line to config.sys
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001

Add line to autoexec.bat (last letter is drive letter for CD)
mscdex /D:mscd001 /M:10 /L:G

[LilguycatX]

Thanks for responding,
     I did as directed:  Added oakcdrom.sys and mscdex.exe to my startup disk; plus added the lines to the config.sys/autoexe.bat files. Then I rebooted to check; both files had the added lines as directed but also had REM TShoot: above them.  
     I then put my startup disk in the A drive - with the new config.sys, autoexe.bat files along with the oakcdrom.sys and mscdex.exe files - and rebooted.
     It loaded so far and then stopped:  This is what was on the DOS screen.

Starting Windows 98

This Driver is provided by Oak Technologies, Inc.
011-91X ATAPI CD-ROM DEVICE DRIVER, REV D91XV352

Vortex Dos Audio Driver (2.000) Copyright (c) 1997,98 Aureal Semiconductor

Error#3:  WINBOOTDIR Environment variable missing, Driver not Loaded

At this point it stopped.  Should I have done it differently?  Thanks

[MalikTous]

I would have to see the entire autoexec.bat and config.sys file content to judge. Why are you running an audio driver on a boot floppy?

The lines to load the CDROM drivers are valid. If you are running HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE, you can also use devicehigh in config.sys and lh in autoexec.bat. For the ZIP drive, there should be a file called GUEST.EXE in your IOmegaWare package that you can run from DOS (autoexec.bat) to enable your ZIP drive.

[LilguycatX]

The first help from Computer_Commando above had me try putting "oakcdrom.sys " on my start up disk.  Is this the audio driver you are referring to?  

My Autoexec.bat & config.sys files at the present are as follows:

Autoexe.bat>
@ECHO OFF
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D3 T4
LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM
C:\WINDOWS\asp4dos.com
SET CLASSPATH=C:\PROGRA~1\PHOTOD~1.0\ADOBEC~1;"C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\lib\ext\QTJava.zip"
SET QTJAVA="C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\lib\ext\QTJava.zip"
SET Path=%Path%

Config.sys>
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DRVSPACE.SYS /MOVE

My Autoexec.bat & config.sys files with Computer_Commando's instructions were as follows:

Autoexe.bat>
@ECHO OFF
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D3 T4
LH C:\WINDOWS\AU30DOS.COM
C:\WINDOWS\asp4dos.com

Rem TShoot:
mscdex /D:mscd001 /M:10 /L:H

SET CLASSPATH=C:\PROGRA~1\PHOTOD~1.0\ADOBEC~1;"C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\lib\ext\QTJava.zip"
SET QTJAVA="C:\Program Files\JavaSoft\JRE\1.3\lib\ext\QTJava.zip"
SET Path=%Path%

Config.sys>
DEVICEHIGH=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DRVSPACE.SYS /MOVE

Rem TShoot:
device=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001

NOTE:  I didn't place the "Rem TShoot" in them;  that just came about when I rebooted after
adding the other changes.

My start up disk had HIMEM.SYS but not EMM386.EXE.  What is 'lh' ?  My IOmegaWare package has 'GUEST.EXE' .  What do I do with it?  Thanks, Tom

[Computer_Commando]

This is all you need for the config and autoexec, for the CDROM.  Start with this and nothing else and see if the CDROM is recognized.

I suspect there's a "device=" for the Zip drive; probably a line for the autoexec which will assign the drive letter.  Download "Iomega Driver for DOS" from Iomega.


config.sys
dos=high,umb
lastdrive=Z
device=himem.sys
devicehigh=oakcdrom.sys /D:mscd001


autoexec.bat
LH mscdex /D:mscd001 /M:10 /L:G

[johnwill]

If you visit www.bootdisk.com you'll find a number of MS-DOS boot disk images that will do this for you without any editing.