Problem: Device driver not found: “BANANA’
I formatted my hard drive, and tried to reinstall Win95. I have the original CD with license, but no setup diskettes. So I downloaded Win95 bootdisk from bootdisk.com. When I boot up with this diskette, I get this error message:
CD-ROM Device Driver IDE (Four Channels Supported) Oak Technology Inc. Driver Version V340, Device Name BANANA
No drives found, aborting installation.
Device driver not found: “BANANA’
I even downloaded the cdenab.exe file from support.dell.com and run the diskette to get a CD driver installed, but received the same error message.
I have a DELL Latitude CPi with Pentium II processor, the DELL CD_ROM is 8x.
What should I try next?
Solution: Device driver not found: “BANANA’
OK, so you downloaded
http://ftp.us.dell.com/utility/CDENAB.EXE
and ran it to create a boot floppy.
The problem is that this is designed for “Dell Precision Workstations”, but it looks as though your latitude Notebook came with a Samsung CD-Rom. The drivers created on the boot floppy made from CDENAB.EXE are: NEC, Toshiba, Hitachi, and SCSI CD-Rom drivers. The NEC option loads the Oak Technology driver, which normally works on just about any CD-ROM drive, but it seems yours is the exception.
I found and downloaded the following file after quickly browsing through the available downloads for your latitude CPi model on the Dell Support site:
Release Title: System Utilities: Dell System Utilities, Driver, Multi OS, English, Multi System, v.1.0, A01
Release Date: 08/15/2000
Description: Latitude CP Series DOS/Windows 9x CD-ROM Drivers
DOS-CDR.EXE (660 KB)
http://ftp.us.dell.com/utility/DOS-CDR.EXE
Running DOS-CDR.EXE from within Windows creates a floppy with the setup files for installing DOS CD-Rom Drivers for:
“the Latitude CP Family CD-ROM module IN THE MODULE BAY of the notebook ONLY. There is no MS-DOS support provided for the CD-ROM module in the module bay of the Latitude C/Dock”.
OK, so you can’t actually INSTALL these drivers on YOUR laptop, because you aren’t running Windows. I have unzipped the file with WinZip to check out the “readme.txt” and “version.txt” files that tell you the driver that WOULD be installed:
Title: Latitude CP(a) Samsung Drivers
Version: A00
OEM Name: Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
OEM Ver: M2.31
OS: Windows 95 (OSR2), Windows 95 (OSR2.1), Windows 98
Computers: Latitude CP, Latitude CPi, Latitude CPiA
Languages: US English
Created: 01/26/99
Compatible with: Latitude CPt C, CPi A, CPi R, CPi and CP running DOS and Windows 3.x, 95, 98 and NT 4.0.
Driver file that would be installed:
SSCDROM.SYS – Samsung CD-ROM driver
So, the easiest way to get this correct driver for your Samsung CD-Rom Drive is to install the downloaded “DOS-CDR.EXE” package on any other computer running Windows 95 or 98 which you have access to. By “INSTALLING” the package, it WON’T wreck any settings on that computer as long as you follow the instructions below, which I have tested on a Win98 computer:
1. Open Windows Notepad and minimize it
2. In Windows Explorer or “My Computer”, find “DOS-CDR.EXE” and double-click on it
3. Click the “setup” button and follow the prompts to create a floppy disk with the setup files
4. In Windows Explorer, navigate to the floppy drive and double-click on “setup.exe”
5. A Setup window with a green background loads full screen
6. Click the “Next” button
7. Read the details if you wish, but click “Next” again
8. Accept the default folder to install the driver to, which will be C:CDROM
9. Click “Next”
A message will show telling you that “Setup will add the following line to your Config.Sys file”:
C:CDROMSSCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD00D /V”.
10. Scroll over that line and press Ctrl + C to copy it
11. Press the ALT key, and then the TAB key. Keep pressing the TAB key until it is on the Notepad icon, then release the ALT key
12. Paste the copied line into Notepad (Ctrl + V) and Minimize Notepad
13. IMPORTANT: Click in the option that says “DO NOT make any changes to my Config.sys file”, and then click “Next”.
14. A confirmation message shows telling you that no changes were made. Click OK.
A similar message will now show telling you that the following line will be added to the Autoexec.bat file:
C:CDROMMSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD00D /M:20
15. Copy it and paste into a new line in Notepad as explained in steps 10 to 12.
16. IMPORTANT: Click in the option that says “DO NOT make any changes to my Autoexec.bat file”, and then click “Next”
17. A confirmation message shows telling you that no changes were made. Click OK
18. Click “Finish” to end Setup.
19. Remove the floppy disk containing the DOS-CDR setup files, and insert the boot floppy you created by running CDENAB.EXE previously
20. Copy C:CDROMSSCDROM.SYS to the boot floppy. If there isn’t enough room on the floppy, delete either or both of the following files: NEC_IDE.SYS, HIT-DVD.SYS.
21. Open the CONFIG.SYS file on the floppy in Notepad and modify it to the following by pasting the relevant line into it (that you copied and pasted into Notepad after Step 9 earlier) against the 2nd “device=” line:
[menu]
menuitem=SAMS_IDE, Load CD driver
menuitem=NOCD, NO CD support
menudefault=SAMS_IDE,12
menucolor=7,0
[SAMS_IDE]
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
device=SSCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD00D /V
[NOCD]
device=himem.sys /testmem:off
[COMMON]
files=10
buffers=10
dos=high,umb
stacks=9,256
lastdrive=z
22. Save your new Config.sys file and open Autoexec.bat on the boot floppy in Notepad.
23. Copy and Paste the other line (that you pasted earlier into Notepad after Step 14) after the line starting with “LH” as shown below:
@ECHO OFF
set EXPAND=YES
SET DIRCMD=/O:N
cls
set temp=c:
set tmp=c:
path=a:
IF “%config%”==”NOCD” GOTO QUIT
LH a:MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD00D /M:20
:QUIT
EXIT
24. Save your new Autoexec.bat.
25. Check and see if the files “Autoexec.CDR” and “Config.CDR” have been created in the root of your C: Drive. If so, just delete them.
26. Delete the folder C:CDROM.
27. There is no Uninstall routine for the Setup run from the floppy to get the driver file, because it is only designed to create a folder with the drivers, and modify your boot files IF you chose to. You chose not to.
This new boot floppy will only provide 2 menu options:
Load CD driver
NO CD support
It will default to the top option after 12 seconds if you don’t choose the second option, and will load the Samsung CD-Rom driver which SHOULD work OK.
Instead of running Setup.exe from the floppy created by DOS-CDR.EXE, you might be able to find a copy of the driver SSCDROM.SYS as a single file on the internet and use it instead. All you would then have to do is modify the text in Autoexec.bat and Config.sys on your boot floppy.
Good luck
