No cdrom detected

[Teddypotter]

I have installing mac os 7.5 on a old powermac 8100/100 from a cdrom.
After the install there is no cdrom drive anymore.
Everything works exept the cdrom drive.
I found a program cdrom toolkit but how can i transfer it to this computer ?
The file is to big to put it on a floppydisk.
The cdrom drive is a plextor scsi . When i started a tool called lido it can see the cdrom . Weird problem.
This powermac is unusable without a cdrom drive . This is a very bad computer and is not userfriendly it all.
Mac os 7.5 is also not userfriendly because there is no any information whats wrong .
What to do?
With only a floppy i can not put any big files on this computer . Very frustated.

[Teddypotter]

I have installing mac os 7.5 on a old powermac 8100/100 from a cdrom.
After the install there is no cdrom drive anymore.
Everything works exept the cdrom drive.
I found a program cdrom toolkit but how can i transfer it to this computer ?
The file is to big to put it on a floppydisk.
The cdrom drive is a plextor scsi . When i started a tool called lido it can see the cdrom . Weird problem.
This powermac is unusable without a cdrom drive . This is a very bad computer and is not userfriendly it all.
Mac os 7.5 is also not userfriendly because there is no any information whats wrong .
What to do?
With only a floppy i can not put any big files on this computer . Very frustated.

Not very helpfull here . It is not the business of this site to help anyone with a old computer

[IIO]

one short sentence about your experience with mac os and one short sentence about what kind of CD you tried to insert (and what happens when you did), and they might have the answer you are looking for.

[ssp3]

Lovely attitude. Do we owe the noob anything?

[IIO]

lovely is my other name.

[ssp3]

His, not yours. 

[Protools5LEGuy]

I have installing mac os 7.5 on a old powermac 8100/100 from a cdrom.
After the install there is no cdrom drive anymore.
Everything works exept the cdrom drive.
I found a program cdrom toolkit but how can i transfer it to this computer ?
The file is to big to put it on a floppydisk.
The cdrom drive is a plextor scsi . When i started a tool called lido it can see the cdrom . Weird problem.
This powermac is unusable without a cdrom drive . This is a very bad computer and is not userfriendly it all.
Mac os 7.5 is also not userfriendly because there is no any information whats wrong .
What to do?
With only a floppy i can not put any big files on this computer . Very frustated.

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac/specs/powermac_8100_100.html

[Protools5LEGuy]

Not very helpfull here . It is not the business of this site to help anyone with a old computer

Normally we demand before a post introducing yourself here http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php/topic,1991.0.html

[Protools5LEGuy]

Lovely attitude. Do we owe the noob anything?

If we owe something to someone normally is DieHard the one that introduces us the user as a contributor/donor.

AFAIK Potter is a new user in a hurry. Let´s try to help him even if he doesn´t have read the rules of the site.

If I had a 8100 (never did) I would install 8.6 or 9.1.  Even if I decide to use system 7 I would use the latest 7.5.3. But I have no idea how to do that.

Oldest Mac I have is a G3 B&W Rev. 1 and always installed 9.1 or 9.2.1 on it

[DrNo7]

Two other points to keep in mind to help fix the situation:
× back in Mac OS 7 days, the installation media were machine specific in the hardware they supported. So if the installation media was not a universal one or the one for PowerMacs 8100, you are missing important pieces. And sometimes, it is faster to reinstall with the right installation media than diff the extensions/control panels
* the trick to get big things on a computer with only a floppy drive, is to use Stuffit Deluxe to make a .sit archive of whatever you need, and ask it to split it into 1MB chunks. Copy them over with as many floppies you have, and Stuffit expander will merge everything back.

You should not be very far from where you want to be

[IIO]

a CD drive should work as is (and it is highly unlikely that a plextor is incopatible wih a grey mac) unless it is broken or you try to read a CD in an unknown format.

but installing OS8 or OS9 is a good idea, anyway.

[ssp3]

It won't. Apple blocked the use of non Apple CD-ROM drives. This is well known problem and there are several ways to deal with it.

Using OS9 on PM8100 will be a torture. Despite the OS9 being the latest, it is not the greatest for every Mac out there.

[chrisNova777]

you could always just add an external CDROM + external ZIP drive
and get your network card working and connected to local network
you can use a modern mac to share a dvd drive over the network cant you?
might require some knowledge of AFP + appleshare?

[ovalking]

I agree with ssp3.

The OP is a bit confusing, but I assume the original CD-ROM was replaced with the plextor post-install. This is non-standard so may not work

We're given little info about the symptoms, but Drive Setup can be used to check the hardware is on the SCSI bus, but it won't tell you about compatibility.
I don't know what CD-ROM Toolkit can do. It may help if it includes a driver for the Plextor.

Of course, the easiest way to get files on/off is via the network.

I do not recommend OS 8.6 or 9.x for this machine unless some specific s/w needs to be run.
7.5.5 is the best choice of OS for this machine - freely available and much faster.

[IIO]

then why did it work for the OS install?

he is long gone and we do not really know the problem, but we should continue to fix the problem at all cost, lol.

[ssp3]

It is unknown in what state the machine was prior to installing 7.5. Maybe it had OS with all necessary extensions which were then overwritten by install. Or, if the OP comes from a dark win side, he doesn't know how to move extensions around

[IIO]

it obviously was in a working state, which is why i think that a driver for the plextor must exist. beside that, it seems unlikely that someone installs a non working drive into a machine and then sells it.

i have used various plextor drives myself, but only with the next generation (7300, 8500) and only at the external port, so i am completely unaware of issues with the internal port. yet not suprised, it would be typically apple.

[ssp3]

I've been using Plextor CD-ROM drives exclusively on everything from Q605 to PM9600 and everything NuBus and PCI inbetween. Internally and externally. All possible models, from 4CS (caddy, 4x speed) to 40TS (40x speed). In all those years (from about late '90s) I've never seen a driver written by or for Plextor. The solution always was to either roll back older Apple extension or ResEdit the newer ones. Simple as that.

Also, my memory escapes me, but, I think, if the bootable CD is the only valid volume and HDD is blank, Mac will boot from any CD-ROM drive, even from non Apple. I think I was in such situation once. Maybe there was some key combination to invoke that, but I don't remember it anymore. 

[IIO]

that could be that booting from the drive using the c keyboard command could actually make a difference.

so i guess we found the solution: he can simply erase the HD everytime he wants to read a CD. perfect solution for a noob with an old computer.

[ssp3]

It might have been cmd-opt-shift-delete.