Hi, you can try to change a few things..

a) try to use standard CD-ROM device name (MSCD001). I know some clowns use BANANA without problems, but you never know.

b) try not to load vide-cdd.sys high ; I had seen computers that didn't like that for whatever reason.
Maybe the memory manager is a culprit here, or the UMA memory has limitations (DMA etc). Not sure.

c) use a modern MSCDEX, maybe from a Windows 9x boot disk. Or the one included with Multimedia Cloaking.

Good luck, and don't give up. I doubt it's a hardware defect.

What are you trying to read under DOS ?

If is a UDF format CD-R(W) or DVD-R(W) or DVD+R(W), or a red book audio CD (this can played with a DOS CD player) for example, it will not work.

The disk needs to ISO9660 or High Sierra format to be readable under DOS.

^MSCDEX can also read CD-i (Windows 9x equivalent can't without help of an IFS) and some Japanese formats, AFAIK.

Edit: There are also other formats, like XA, Rock-Ridge and so on.
https://wiki.preterhuman.net/CD-ROM_Common_Qu … ons_and_Answers

For example, many music CDs of early 90s do secretly contain little animations, karaoke texts/lyrcs, pictures and so on.
That's a little known fact. Early multimedia players such as the Philips CD-i, Commodore CD32/CDTV or Panansonic 3DO could display that, AFAIK.
Kodak Photo CD is also compatible with MSCDEX, but needs the Access software to read pictures.
Some "books" also need hardware support in the CD-ROM drive firmware, I believe.

Thanks for your suggestions!

darry wrote on 2024-03-27, 00:24:

What are you trying to read under DOS ?

Just the Windows 98 CD. But it doesn't even attempt to read the disc, it seems? I don't think it's me having burned the disc improperly. When I insert my original Windows 95 CD it also doesn't do anything.

I've renamed the driver to MSCD001. vide-cdd.sys was already not being loaded high. I was using mscdex.exe from the Win98 CD. I ended up giving shsucdx.com a try, but that also results in the same issue.
It's strange, but for now I guess I will dig up some proper CD drive rather than a DVD-RW to see if that helps.

edit: OK, so what I ended up doing is just attaching a CD-ROM drive instead, and that one works perfectly.
It could be that the DVD-RW drive just isn't working well, or maybe I was doing something wrong after all. If someone has a great idea for resolving this that might help a future traveler coming here from Google or forum search, that would be great, but personally I'll probably just stick with this. 😀

Jo22 wrote on 2024-03-27, 01:01:

^MSCDEX can also read CD-i (Windows 9x equivalent can't without help of an IFS) and some Japanese formats, AFAIK. […]
Show full quote

^MSCDEX can also read CD-i (Windows 9x equivalent can't without help of an IFS) and some Japanese formats, AFAIK.

Edit: There are also other formats, like XA, Rock-Ridge and so on.
https://wiki.preterhuman.net/CD-ROM_Common_Qu … ons_and_Answers

For example, many music CDs of early 90s do secretly contain little animations, karaoke texts/lyrcs, pictures and so on.
That's a little known fact. Early multimedia players such as the Philips CD-i, Commodore CD32/CDTV or Panansonic 3DO could display that, AFAIK.
Kodak Photo CD is also compatible with MSCDEX, but needs the Access software to read pictures.
Some "books" also need hardware support in the CD-ROM drive firmware, I believe.

Good point to keep in mind. The main scenario I had in mind was that OP might have burned a disk with the win9x directory to a UDF disk accidentally. This turned out not to be the case.

dada wrote on 2024-03-27, 08:12:

Thanks for your suggestions! […]
Show full quote

Thanks for your suggestions!

darry wrote on 2024-03-27, 00:24:

What are you trying to read under DOS ?

Just the Windows 98 CD. But it doesn't even attempt to read the disc, it seems? I don't think it's me having burned the disc improperly. When I insert my original Windows 95 CD it also doesn't do anything.

I've renamed the driver to MSCD001. vide-cdd.sys was already not being loaded high. I was using mscdex.exe from the Win98 CD. I ended up giving shsucdx.com a try, but that also results in the same issue.
It's strange, but for now I guess I will dig up some proper CD drive rather than a DVD-RW to see if that helps.

edit: OK, so what I ended up doing is just attaching a CD-ROM drive instead, and that one works perfectly.
It could be that the DVD-RW drive just isn't working well, or maybe I was doing something wrong after all. If someone has a great idea for resolving this that might help a future traveler coming here from Google or forum search, that would be great, but personally I'll probably just stick with this. 😀

Glad that you got it work.

For reference, could you please share the drive brands and models that respectively did not work and did ?

darry wrote on 2024-03-27, 11:59:

Glad that you got it work.

For reference, could you please share the drive brands and models that respectively did not work and did ?

Just for reference, I did not manage to get the DVD-RW to work at all. The drive that did not work is a BTC DRW1016IM 16x.
I ended up replacing it with an LTN-526, a Lite-On 52x CD drive.