CD-R drive on a Dos based machine?

[GPappy]

I have an old Acer Pentium III machine that has been sitting in a corner for about 10years. I decided that I wanted to make it into a dos machine for playing some vintage games and to set up for playing around with Linux. It has a CD-ROM that is connected to a Sound Blaster 16 (CT1740) card.

The issue is that the CD will not read anything that I have recorded. I need to be able to make CDs for Linux and to transfer files from my newer computer so I have to be able to read at least CD-R discs.

I have a couple of DVD drives and CD-R/W drives that I have rescued from other machines that didn't make it to the corner and I was hoping to use on of those. Unfortuntately none of them work by just plugging them in and I don't have enough knowledge of DOS and the drivers that might be necessary to get this combination to work.

Does anyone know if I can make this work and if not, what would be a good alternative??

Thanks,
Greg

 

[AntimatterAsh]

I have an old Acer Pentium III machine that has been sitting in a corner for about 10years. I decided that I wanted to make it into a dos machine for playing some vintage games and to set up for playing around with Linux. It has a CD-ROM that is connected to a Sound Blaster 16 (CT1740) card.

The issue is that the CD will not read anything that I have recorded. I need to be able to make CDs for Linux and to transfer files from my newer computer so I have to be able to read at least CD-R discs.

I have a couple of DVD drives and CD-R/W drives that I have rescued from other machines that didn't make it to the corner and I was hoping to use on of those. Unfortuntately none of them work by just plugging them in and I don't have enough knowledge of DOS and the drivers that might be necessary to get this combination to work.

Does anyone know if I can make this work and if not, what would be a good alternative??

Thanks,
Greg

I may have got this wrong, but a CD drive shouldn't be connected to a sound card? It should connect to the motherboard?

 

[wolfeking]

I may have got this wrong, but a CD drive shouldn't be connected to a sound card? It should connect to the motherboard?

In older systems, you have that wrong in a way. The CD drive will have 3 connections. Line out sound, IDE data and Molex power in. The go to Sound device, Motherboard, and PSU respectively.

 

[GPappy]

This machine only has one IDE connection on the motherboard. The Sound Blaster has a secondary IDE connection for the cd.

I have it working now. I had it jumpered to be cable select which did not work. Changed it to master and it works that way. Now if it were only possible to get the bios updated to recognize moe than a 500m hard drive I would be all set.

 

[blazin8556]

a pentium 3 machine would have more than 1 ide connection usually. sure its not a 386 or 486?

anyway you have it working thats what matters right?

 

[StrangleHold]

The cable from the CD drive to the sound card is for sound. Its still connected to the motherboard with a IDE cable. Older IDE cables didnt transfer sound and you needed the cable to the sound card. Or the IDE just did digital and the wire was for analog.