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daveflash20

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External parallel port cd-rom

Hi,
I've got the external parallel port driver BLUES! I asked this question some months back and although satisfied with the answers given, I still want to keep trying.

Bascically I have this parrallel port cd drive I bought on ebay.
Multi-Systems technology Inc, But no software and I've been tearing my hair out ever since.
I've searched the internet high and low, no joy.

Have a look at the old Question for details of the drive.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21066840/external-parallel-port-cd-drive.html

Please help!
Avatar of tengage
tengage

Are you still running 95?

One suggestion that I didn't see in the other thread was this -

There are several settings for your parallel port in BIOS.  BIOS is what you see when the computer is booting.  It will usually say "Press F2 to enter setup"  The key can be anything (CTRL+1, any F keys, DEL, ESC).

Somewhere in the BIOS, there is an entry for the Parallel port.  There are usually 3 or 4 different options.  I would guess that the one you need is Bi-Directional, but it won't hurt to go through all of them.  This will still leave you with trying to locate drivers.
Avatar of daveflash20

ASKER

Yeah,
I'm still running Win 95, and the parallel port is set to BI-Directional.
Does anybody know if any of these drivers are generic or will work with my 2X external drive?
Parallel is generic, CD readers are generic, there is nothing hardware wise that I can imagine that a "driver" would see that would distinguish it from any other parallel attached CD drive but I could be mistaken.  I used a driver from microsolutions for a parallel 2x writer that wasn't written specifically for my hardware and it worked.  It supports dozens of models and may work for yours.  This driver is good from 95 through XP.  Give it a try (if you haven't already).  You may also consider doing a BIOS upgrade.  Let me know the make and model of your Laptop and we'll send you a link to a floppy image.

http://www.micro-solutions.com/downloads/index.asp
I found a link related to the parallel modes for a parallel port.  If EPP is an option in BIOS, you may want to try it.

http://www.micro-solutions.com/support/docs/2701.asp
Try reading this, it may help you, or you can contact DAVEINCAPS or liz who authored the post. They seemed to have a similar problem and got it patched up. Maybe DAVE can email you the same bootdisk that he sent liz that worked.

http://www.computing.net/windows95/wwwboard/forum/161832.html
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Blue_Rishi
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Ok,
Blue Rishi- You are a genius and I think I've found this driver on DriverGuide. Now, I need to somehow delete the Backpack driver from my laptop. It was installed through Dos and causes an error every time I start the computer.
 eg Back cd-rom not found Retry or Continue. Can anybody help me.
Do I have to enter autoexec.bat or something?
You do.  BPCD-ROM writes a line into your C:\autoexec.bat that you just need to remove.  Boot to DOS or DOS bootdisk (not sure if you can edit while Win95 is up), edit the line out (!!!ALWAYS BACKUP THE FILE FIRST!!!), and reboot.

Hope this helps.  /c

(Heh.  I remember having to use a Parallel Backback CD-ROM for old NEC versa laptops running Win95-- what a pain!  Install DOS.  Install BP drivers.  Run Win95 setup.  Would have just used the floppies if I had them!)
I agree, most likely the autoexec.bat or config.sys...could be win.ini or system.ini too in extraordinary circumstances (can't remember which one, has load= and run= at top of file). For easy access to these files, just goto start --> run --> and type 'sysedit' (without the ' '). But you should backup these files before editing them (just copy them to a temporary dir). Autoexec.bat and config.sys can be found in c:\ and the *.ini's can be found in c:\windows.

Look for a cdrom device driver in config.sys (named xxxx.sys /d:xxxxxx) and delete the entry
look for mscdex.exe /d:xxxxx in autoexec.bat and type 'rem ' before it (without the ' ' ) or delete the entry

Blue Rishi

Ok This driver does't seem to work either. Is this because my cd rom is damaged, or do I have to install anothe driver for the actual atapi disk drive?
Is this a windows' level or dos-level driver? (*.inf;*.vxd files loaded into device manager or .sys;.exe files loaded from autoexec.bat/config.sys)
there are no drivers needed for atapi devices; they are supported by windows by default...
If it's a windows driver...does it show up in devicemanager? any errors?
Could be the parallelport setup to...for example, a mismatch on irq (using irq:7, while driver expects irq:5)
or bi-directional support not enabled (ecp or ecp+epp in bios). Enter bios and make sure the ltp port is set to either of these modes...

Blue Rishi