DOS Boot Driver for SATA DVD

Question

I am looking for a DOS device driver that supports the SATA DVD drives used in the E520 and other systems based on the Intel ICH8 chipset.   I tried the GCDROM.SYS v2.3 in the recommended configurations, but it does not recognize the DVD in any of multiple client machines.  The machines are running RAID-ON in the bios, rather than AutoDetect.  I do not want to change this to ATA emulation mode.   I need to boot various maintenance CDs that use DOS level utilities, such as Partition Magic.  I have a work-around in place, by using a USB-Thumb drive configured with FlashBoot as HDD emulation.  This works well, but I still want to find a DOS driver for Dell SATA DVD drives.

Predator · Answer

Hi Computdox,You may have already seen this. I am sort of behind at work and did not have time to really research the link. Hope something there will work for you.http://www.911cd.net/forums//lofiversion/index.php?t18722.htmlBest Regards! God, grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway,the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell thedifference. CD/RW Link

Compudox · Answer

I've seen that post.  The bulk is dedicated to creating an XP unattended install CD (been there, already done that).   The GCDROM.SYS driver for DOS does not work with Dell machines when the ICH8 controller is in the default RAID ON mode.  If you change it to RAID AUTOMATIC/ATA mode, this device driver is recognized and mounts the cdrom driver under DOS.   I tested this on an E520 machine.  Despite the dire warnings from CMOS (2.3.2) about trashing the installed OS, I had no difficulties.  I was able to set to AUTO, boot the DOS cd, run Partition Magic, then restore CMOS and boot the installed WinXP without problem.   It worked this time, but is admittedly scary.  I had a full GHOST image of the disk, so even if I destroyed the installation with AUTO mode, I could fully recover it.   I'm finding it much safer to create a bootable USB thumb drive using FlashBoot in HDD mode, and installing the various DOS programs I require.  This is done by FlashBoot with a regular boot floppy.  Dell will not boot in SuperFloppy mode, but boots fine in HDD emulation.   Last, I have the full source code to GCDROM 2.3, so I might rewrite the ASM file if I have absolutely nothing else to do with the free time.

Btan57 · Answer

I've tried GCDROM in a Dimension 9200 (aka DXP061, G965 chipset) but it doesn't appear to work. I have tried the RAID settings to no avail. The optical drives in the machine are:
TSSTcorp CD-RW/DVD-ROM TS-H493A
TSSTcorp DVD+/-RW TS-H653A

GCDROM does work in an Optiplex 745 (non-RAID, Q965 chipset).

Just for the record, I'm booting to DOS using a USB flash drive to access a Ghost image on DVD. Ultimately I hope to boot the DVD itself. But until I can get the UFD working I don't see a much point in burning DVDs because I'm expecting to use the same 'floppy' image. I used the HP Windows Format Utility for USB to create the floppy image on USB.

Storage, Drives & Media

DOS Boot Driver for SATA DVD

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