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TITLE: CDROM drive
DOCUMENT ID#: FYI.P.6084
DATE: 04Dec92
PRODUCT: NetWare Lite
PRODUCT VERSION: All versions
SUPERSEDES: NA
SYMPTOM: NA
ISSUE/PROBLEM
CD-ROM drive
The following describes configuring your system to run with NetWare Lite and a CD-ROM drive.
MSCDEX.EXE, the program provided from Microsoft to run a CD-ROM, assigns a drive letter to the CD-ROM drive. This can default to the next available drive, or can be set to a specific drive with the /L:x parameter, where x is the drive letter. However, their are conflicts between MSCDEX.EXE and CLIENT.EXE, a NetWare Lite file that is loaded to make the machine a workstation. The way we were able to work around some of these conflicts was by doing the following.
PREFERRED METHOD
1) Load CLIENT.EXE then run MSCDEX.EXE
SECONDARY METHOD
This has been known to solve some but not necessarily all CD-ROM drive and NetWare Lite issues. If PREFERRED METHOD fails and the workstation was a CLIENT-only it must be made a SERVER-CLIENT.
1) Run MSCDEX.EXE before CLIENT.EXE. This will assign a drive letter to the CD-ROM.
2) After running CLIENT.EXE, that drive letter is no longer directly accessible by DOS. Create a network directory that looks at the drive through the network. For example, if we used the /L:G parameter in MSCDEX to assign G: to the CD-ROM drive, we would then create a network directory (enter NET, select SUPERVISE THE NETWORK, select NETWORK DIRECTORIES, press INS, select your SERVER) and call it something like CDROM and assign the "Actual directory path" to be G:.
3) Then, when we map a drive to the network directory CDROM, though G: is not accessible directly, we can access it as a mapped drive. For example:
NET MAP J: CDROM would map J: to the CDROM network directory that will look at the physical drive G: that MSCDEX.EXE assigned as the CD-ROM drive.