Help with an External CD-ROM drive

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:30 pm

Alright, I suppose I should have come here first.

My "Other System" is a Compaq Contura 410C (80486) running Windows 95. I just got my hands on a never-been-used Micro-solutions Backpack Bantam external 24x CD-ROM with 16-bit sound which is connected via the parallel (printer) port. Installation from floppies, no problem. I finally figured out to set it to device D in "Systems manager" under the Control Panel. Checking everything, each indicator says that the device is working and even the sound is flowing through the speaker without trouble. But then I go into "My Computer" and click on "D:" only to get a message to the effect of "You cannot access drive D: The device is not ready".

I tried changing all the settings such as from EPP to Bidirectional, Unidirectional etc. ... no dice!

I was really looking forward to getting my old thing running and being able to run some old software from the CD's. Now I am pulling my hair out.

My last resort is now to ask if any of you whizzes know what I mean and have any advice.

Thanks (a million) in advance.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:56 pm

This is a long shot, but this weekend I was connecting a 1541-II drive to my PC's parallel port using an XM1541 cable. The drive simply would not be recognized until I uninstalled the printer driver and software (Canon BJC-4300).

Before doing that, the drive was constantly spinning with the "busy" LED always on. I guess the printer software was always polling the parallel port or something.

pitcalco · Post by **pitcalco** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:21 pm

A long shot, but worth a try.
THanks.

Any other ideas are still welcome.

PaulQ · Post by **PaulQ** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:58 pm

Check the BIOS settings, and ensure your parallel port isn't sharing an IRQ or DMA channel with anything else. Also see what other settings you might have regarding the parallel port, and try others.

Does the driver work under DOS?