Memory Devices on Old Motherboard

I'm looking at a friend's ancient Compaq machine. It's a 486/66 and the mobo only has one socket for a floppy (3.5" and / or 5.25" ) and one for a harddrive. Is there anyway to install a CD-ROM on this machine? BTW, my friend likes to put together and run 'old junk', so there's no point in suggesting 'get something more modern'.

That (upgrade) which does not destroy you(r system's stability), makes it stronger. Nietzche

Thanks for your reply. Yes, physically the CD-ROM fits in the 5.25 bay, but the problem is trying to install it. Normally there would be 2 IDE channels, and the CD-ROM (and / or burner, DVD etc.) would be installed on one, and the HDD(s) on the other. In this case there is only one, so I tried installing the CD-ROM as a slave to the HDD. The CD-ROM was definitely set up as a slave, but the pins on the back of the harddrive were not what I'm familiar with (4 pins, instead of 6, and no label - MA, SL, CS). Anyway, when I tried to get Windows (95A) to detect new hardware, it didn't 'see' the CD-ROM, even as unrecognized new hardware. The other problem is that Compaq has that weird pseudo BIOS-O/S program running underneath the O/S. Perhaps I need to 'add' it there first?

That (upgrade) which does not destroy you(r system's stability), makes it stronger. Nietzche

Thanks again. Ya, the pins looked different, with only 4 pins in total. There was already a jumper connecting 2 pins, but it was connecting them 'horizontally' rather than vertically as I'm used to. Without any labels on the harddrive itself it's hard to be sure, but I'm guessing they correspond to master / slave. Interesting about the sound card with the extra IDE. Would those be ISA cards?

That (upgrade) which does not destroy you(r system's stability), makes it stronger. Nietzche

Thanks Crash! I'll check it out and give it another shot. Come to think of it, I've seen that 'storage' position before, just didn't clue in because it's not the same as more current harddrives. Also, I've seen some of those old ISA sound cards, and wondered what the connector was. Never realized it was an IDE socket. Duh.

EDIT: Check an old ISA sound card that was lying around. Had 2 connectors, one labelled IDE the other Creative / Panasonic. Lol. Thanks again.

That (upgrade) which does not destroy you(r system's stability), makes it stronger. Nietzche<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by deadkenny on 10/15/03 09:08 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

Like I said, some were IDE, others for proprietary early CD-ROM interfaces. Some served mulitple drive types by jumper, and still more had multiple interface connections.

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