On 20 Feb 98 at 23:34, Terry L. Clark wrote:

> ...  someone correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't the CD driver
> normally be loaded in autoexec.bat rather than config.sys (where
> it has to be loaded in this manner at all)?

  Real-mode CD-ROM drivers typically load in two pieces.  The second
piece, MSCDEX.EXE, is a standard "high level" driver provided by
Microsoft, and loaded in AUTOEXEC.BAT.  The /D: parameter to MSCDEX
tells it the device name of a "low level" driver already loaded by
CONFIG.SYS.  [Such drivers usually accept a /D: parameter to set
their device name, which should match what is provided to MSCDEX.]

  The low-level piece is typically specific to the manufacturer, and
possibly to the model, of the drive.
  It is technically possible for a manuafacturer to create a low
level driver that loads from AUTOEXEC.BAT as MSCDEX does.  But (a) it
would have to be loaded before MSCDEX, and there's no way to
guarantee that, and (b) I have neither seen nor heard of any
manufacturer who has chosen to do this.

David G