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CD Rom drive and Quadra 950 - Odd problems.

Hey Folks,
I have a Quadra 950, to which I have added a CD-ROM, which I was successfully able to install System 7.6.1.
Oddly the CD ROM isn't recognised by the OS most of the time. Disk changes aren't seen and the disks don't show on the desktop.
What I've checked:
  • Hold down "C" to boot off the CD ROM. Sometimes this works, but I'm not entirely sure when to press the key, and when to release. "After the chime" could be quite a window.
  • Removing the HDD. Boots off CD fine :)
  • Changed termination. Initially I had the single HDD set as the end of the chain with termination and the CD-ROM as a mid chain device with no termination. No change.
  • Changing the device IDs. I had them on 2 and 5. I now have the HDD on 1 and the CD-ROM on 3. No change.
  • Checking what's showing in SilverLining. Both devices show. I can even see the "geometry" of the disk.
  • Change CD-ROM drive. I had a second drive but that's made no difference either.
I understand there might need to be a suitable CD extension installed, but mostly I've got very vague answers on what extension, and where to find it. Can you tell it's been a few decades since I last did this stuff regularly?

I'm very tempted to get a RASCSI and be done with real disks completely. :)

Cheers!

John
 

Byrd

Well-known member
Hi NeshireChoir,

What is the model of the CD-ROM drive? If non Apple it might not be properly supported under the OS, you might need to install a third-party CD-ROM extension (CD Sunrise, FBT CD-ROM toolkit, Toast optical drive extensions). I've come across a couple of late model SCSI optical drives (CD writers) that had a similar issue - one (Sony) could boot holding C but not display on the desktop, another (forgot model) wouldn't boot but would mount CDs in the OS. I'm assuming with some driver switching both could be more usable.
 

joshc

Well-known member
Sometimes this works, but I'm not entirely sure when to press the key, and when to release. "After the chime" could be quite a window.
As soon as you switch the machine on. You can release once you get the Happy Mac or 'Welcome to Macintosh'/Mac OS startup screen.

Changing the device IDs. I had them on 2 and 5. I now have the HDD on 1 and the CD-ROM on 3. No change.
Yeah, as long as you don't have clashing IDs, this should not matter. The 'normal' ID for an internal CD Drive is ID 3.

As Byrd says, this does sound like a software/driver incompatibility is causing the issues.

MacSD is also worth a look if you want an SD based device that is compatible with CD images, the RaSCSI is good but it's more of a hobby device than a production-ready to go 'out of the box' solution.
 

cheesestraws

Well-known member
Can I suggest trying CD Sunrise? It's a good universal driver: if the behaviour persists with that, that'll tell us it's probably not a driver issue.
 
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