Are you using the correct toscdrom.sys for your drive?
What do your config.sys and autoexec.bat look like?

The same drive in 440CDT doesn't require anything specific, just bog standard setup as in for example win98 boot floppy (with oakcdrom.sys I guess?).
I remember it working with standard freedos setup too. I doubt you need a special driver.

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2024-04-26, 16:08:

Can anyone confirm that this drive will work under Dos? I have tried the 'toscdrom.sys' driver from this link, but MSCDEX will n […]
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Can anyone confirm that this drive will work under Dos?
I have tried the 'toscdrom.sys' driver from this link, but MSCDEX will not load it, which makes me wonder if it's a corrupt/broken file.

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1https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=94887&p=1253885&hilit=460cdt%20driver#p1253885

The CD-ROM works fine under the windows 95 gui, though not in the dos mode. It also works under the 98 gui and 2000. This is a problem as I have a few CD games that refuse to run in windows mode.
I have looked at what appears to be the original driver cd-rom for my laptop:

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1https://archive.org/details/460back

There is no driver for the cd-rom on it, despite having dos/w3.x drivers for the sound/video/modem etc.

The photo below is a snap I've taken of my drive which seems to be stock. It's a selectbay version of the Toshiba xm-1502b-n, and I presume the 'n' prefix means 'notebook' or such.

Could try this driver package from Toshiba (does list the 1502B, though not the slim version)...

chiveicrook wrote on 2024-04-27, 09:52:

The same drive in 440CDT doesn't require anything specific, just bog standard setup as in for example win98 boot floppy (with oakcdrom.sys I guess?).
I remember it working with standard freedos setup too. I doubt you need a special driver.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look to be the case.
https://youtu.be/TazObO11tLw?si=FDLJOk22GkZ5T7lH
This video is me trying to start from a bootable win98 install CD, and the oakcdrom.sys does not see the xm-1502b n.
And I can't use CD + floppy simultaneously either.

Does your drive have a different rom version by any chance?

lolo799 wrote on 2024-04-26, 22:43:

Are you using the correct toscdrom.sys for your drive?
What do your config.sys and autoexec.bat look like?

Yes, I chose the 10x selectbay option from the driver install menu, which I believe is what the xm-1502b n is.
My config.sys and autoexec.bat are in the attached screenshots:

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2024-04-28, 17:29:

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look to be the case. https://youtu.be/TazObO11tLw?si=FDLJOk22GkZ5T7lH This video is me trying t […]
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chiveicrook wrote on 2024-04-27, 09:52:

The same drive in 440CDT doesn't require anything specific, just bog standard setup as in for example win98 boot floppy (with oakcdrom.sys I guess?).
I remember it working with standard freedos setup too. I doubt you need a special driver.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look to be the case.
https://youtu.be/TazObO11tLw?si=FDLJOk22GkZ5T7lH
This video is me trying to start from a bootable win98 install CD, and the oakcdrom.sys does not see the xm-1502b n.
And I can't use CD + floppy simultaneously either.

Does your drive have a different rom version by any chance?

Hmm, it seems mine is XM-1502B S. May 1998, ver 000, ROM RA71013S. Never noticed the "S" before. Works like a charm with oakcdrom.sys.

EDIT: Maybe instead of bootable CD try stuff from generic win98 floppy. Booting from CD on these laptops is a hit and miss and I wonder if it may somehow "shadow" the real drive behind floppy emulation.

chiveicrook wrote on 2024-05-02, 12:00:

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2024-04-28, 17:29:

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look to be the case. https://youtu.be/TazObO11tLw?si=FDLJOk22GkZ5T7lH This video is me trying t […]
Show full quote

chiveicrook wrote on 2024-04-27, 09:52:

The same drive in 440CDT doesn't require anything specific, just bog standard setup as in for example win98 boot floppy (with oakcdrom.sys I guess?).
I remember it working with standard freedos setup too. I doubt you need a special driver.

Unfortunately for me, it doesn't look to be the case.
https://youtu.be/TazObO11tLw?si=FDLJOk22GkZ5T7lH
This video is me trying to start from a bootable win98 install CD, and the oakcdrom.sys does not see the xm-1502b n.
And I can't use CD + floppy simultaneously either.

Does your drive have a different rom version by any chance?

Hmm, it seems mine is XM-1502B S. May 1998, ver 000, ROM RA71013S. Never noticed the "S" before. Works like a charm with oakcdrom.sys.

EDIT: Maybe instead of bootable CD try stuff from generic win98 floppy. Booting from CD on these laptops is a hit and miss and I wonder if it may somehow "shadow" the real drive behind floppy emulation.

Thanks for clarification on the drive difference.
I can't use floppies and cd-rom simultaneously on this machine. I do have the external floppy drive for the 460cdt, but it doesn't read disks due to some fault I need to fix.

Even if the floppy drive did work, it's still seems that generic cd drivers don't work with the xm-1502b n under Dos.

I did try the Steven G. Paterson Dos6.22+win 3.11 CD-ROM, which uses the fairly popular and generic drivers like shsucdx and cutemouse etc. it did not work despite those drivers being quite modern.

I once tried booting a red hat Linux cd on it many, many years ago, and that didn't like the drive either.

The only CDs that did boot and install on the machine were win2000 and XP, which aren't the best option for a 166mhz mmx machine, as some might say.

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2024-04-27, 11:02:

Vic Zarratt wrote on 2024-04-26, 16:08:

Can anyone confirm that this drive will work under Dos? I have tried the 'toscdrom.sys' driver from this link, but MSCDEX will n […]
Show full quote

Can anyone confirm that this drive will work under Dos?
I have tried the 'toscdrom.sys' driver from this link, but MSCDEX will not load it, which makes me wonder if it's a corrupt/broken file.

Copy code to clipboard

1https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=94887&p=1253885&hilit=460cdt%20driver#p1253885

The CD-ROM works fine under the windows 95 gui, though not in the dos mode. It also works under the 98 gui and 2000. This is a problem as I have a few CD games that refuse to run in windows mode.
I have looked at what appears to be the original driver cd-rom for my laptop:

Copy code to clipboard

1https://archive.org/details/460back

There is no driver for the cd-rom on it, despite having dos/w3.x drivers for the sound/video/modem etc.

The photo below is a snap I've taken of my drive which seems to be stock. It's a selectbay version of the Toshiba xm-1502b-n, and I presume the 'n' prefix means 'notebook' or such.

Could try this driver package from Toshiba (does list the 1502B, though not the slim version)...

cddrv222.zip

Thank you,
I tried out this one by running the installer, though it displays a tree describing the current IDE hardware configuration. It shows that nothing is detected.

In addition to this, the driver actually has to have a master/slave description in the autoexec/config.sys. that is unusual for any cd driver to require such, since we usually use hardware jumpers or cable select for such setting. (Which can't be done on this laptop)

I will try out some drivers from this site: http://www.autourdupc.com/index.php?sPage=/Ma … M/CDROM_IDE.htm
And will return to update the discussion, as I'm sure there must be other frustrated 460cdt owners out there who want this mystery figured out.

I've got a recovery disk from the 445CDT which has the same TOSCDROM.SYS as the 10x version - Toshiba CD-ROM Device Driver (ATAPI) Version 3.03
Checking the 10x file from the toscdrom package it has the same CRC / SHA checksums so it's the same and the file in the toscdrom.exe is not corrupted.
The recovery disk is attached for reference though I understand you can't use the floppy right now 😒

Just pulled out a 460CDT with the same CD-ROM drive as yours (XM-1502B N) with Windows 98 SE installed. Tested with this TOSCDROM.SYS and these settings:

Config.sys: DEVICE=C:\TOSCDROM.SYS /D:TOSCD001
Autoexec.bat: MSCDEX /D:TOSCD001

Note that there's no path specified so it should be using MSCDEX in the Windows directory, under "command" I think.
Booted up to command prompt only and the CD driver works fine and could read my Windows 98 test CD from DOS.

I wonder if the MSCDEX file you're loading from the DOS directory isn't working with the DOS version you're booting into?
Or perhaps an inclusion / setting in EMM386 is using some memory space needed for the CD-ROM drive, a longshot but it's something I faced getting PCMCIA working in DOS. Could try temporarily removing some of the EMM386 options.
Here's the Toshiba 460CDT document that shows the memory map.

BTW, regarding the floppy drive if it's the wide / slim type that fits into the SelectBay on your laptop and it's got the light grey facia plastic. That's the Citizen W1D in there usually and the belts have failed on just about 100% of the drives now, you need to fit a new belt to use that drive. Or you can look around for a dark-grey type Toshiba floppy drive that fits the SelectBay like from a Tecra 8000 / 8100 / 8200 - some are still W1D belt-driven floppy drives (same bezel as yours but dark grey) but the later ones switched to a direct-drive floppy which doesn't have a belt to go bad and works much better.

What's your bios version and what are your IDE settings there?
The latest one is 6.B0 from '99 (the same as in my 440CDT). I wonder, maybe you've set "standard IDE" instead of "enhanced IDE" ? That could potentially mess with dos but not necessarily with windows.

The Mystery has been solved! Many thanks and best regards to all who participated in this thread.
Here is a video detailing the problem and the conclusion... https://youtu.be/u4fs2rubzro

chiveicrook wrote on Yesterday, 05:16:

What's your bios version and what are your IDE settings there?
The latest one is 6.B0 from '99 (the same as in my 440CDT). I wonder, maybe you've set "standard IDE" instead of "enhanced IDE" ? That could potentially mess with dos but not necessarily with windows.

The system BIOS on my 460cdt is 6.a0, and you were pretty close to finding the root of the issue. There are two screens in the bios/system setup, the 2nd is accessed by tapping the page down key.
The problem turns out to be setting the selectbay address which can be set to the following:
Secondary IDE
IRQ10
IRQ11
Disabled
For some reason, mine was set to IRQ10, perhaps the previous owner had a selectbay hard disk that used this function? Anyway, Set this to secondary IDE and it should fix the problem.

I'm guessing that the 2000/XP discs and the 9x gui have some kind of "fool freindly" runtime that gets around weird IRQ settings, while DOS expects the user to be a little more streetwise about the system configuration.

Thermalwrong wrote on 2024-05-05, 18:47:

BTW, regarding the floppy drive if it's the wide / slim type that fits into the SelectBay on your laptop and it's got the light grey facia plastic. That's the Citizen W1D in there usually and the belts have failed on just about 100% of the drives now, you need to fit a new belt to use that drive. Or you can look around for a dark-grey type Toshiba floppy drive that fits the SelectBay like from a Tecra 8000 / 8100 / 8200 - some are still W1D belt-driven floppy drives (same bezel as yours but dark grey) but the later ones switched to a direct-drive floppy which doesn't have a belt to go bad and works much better.

Thank you for your great efforts in verifying the software and uploading the reference materials. As you can see from my last post, it turns out to be a bios setting causing the trouble.
My floppy drive isn't the internal selectbay type, though rather the external box type with the cable that plugs into a small socket under the power button. And I too reckon the belt is dead, as it makes a slow wiring noise when trying to access the diskette.

Great that you've got it working now 😀 I wouldn't have guessed a setting in the BIOS could break that. Maybe it's like my Portege 610CT which when the BIOS resets will set its IDE mode to standard instead of LBA so its own factory installed hard drive won't detect until that's reconfigured.

Regarding the floppy drive - that's an EME279 drive and it also needs a new belt. It's pretty easy to replace the belt on that compared to the W1D and it's a much more reliable drive in my experience.