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Cannot boot from CD

1K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  Byteman 
#1 ·
I've never been able to boot from a CD. I have changed the boot order in BIOS so cdrom appears first. The BIOS is from Award. The system is a bit older, built in 1999. The CD ROM is a generic Memorex 40x. It is the master on the 2nd IDE interface. Not sure if these facts are significant, but when I choose, I believe the option is Standard CMOS, my hard drives are listed, but not the CD ROM. Not sure if this is a problem, or if this option just lists hard drives and not CD ROMs. Also, when I boot, the CD ROM light doesn't flash, and the The CD inside is not spun, making me think that the CD is not even being checked for a boot sector, even though I have cdrom first in the boot sequence. Anyway, the CD ROM gets recognized and everything, that's not a problem, I can access CD's after I boot and everything is normal. Any idea on where to go from here?
 
#2 ·
Hi, Do you know if the computer came with win98 or 95 and was then upgraded to win98/ whatever....? Your drive may need real mode (DOS) drivers to load at boot, however doing this sometimes results in no drive appearing in Windows....
The light not flashing at all is a sign of something wrong, too.

The first black/white screen you see, just after memory count, should show the hard drive, Master and Slave Primary first, then Secondary, and your CD drive should appear with the make and model of CDROM listed. In the BIOS itself, it may just appear as the Secondary Master. Is it set to AUTO- most work this way, newer drives usually do. Some older drives needed to be set to NORMAL or NONE, had a few in here that had that setting.
If it does not, there may be a cable problem or jumper problem, but if so, the drive should not be working in Windows...
Did the drive come with an install floppy-? but before you use it if it did, check the support website for the drive, usually things like this problem are in FAQ area or in the drive manual which you may be able to open or download if you do not have a hardcopy. Adobe Acrobat Reader is the program you need to view .PDF docs like most manuals are available to read/view online or download and open only with Adobe Acrobat or some other .PDF file viewer.
NOTE: also, some BIOSes have extra settings for booting from various devices....they may not even be on the same screen as the Priority settings....look all through the screens, Advanced Chipset, Integrated Peripherals, etc careful not to change anything just yet, just exit....use SAVE/EXIT only if you know you want to change something!
Trying to recall the exact wording of those other settings...
"Try other boot devices" is one.
 
#3 ·
I built the system myself, so I installed win98 on it initially, and have recently upgraded to XP. Yes, the screen after memory count does include the CD ROM drive. Not sure what you mean by your question " is it set to AUTO " ... you mean in the BIOS? In the BIOS it just lists nothing under secondary master, which is what the cd rom drive is jumpered as.
I'm not sure about the floppy, I think so and I'll look for it, though I'd be hesitant to use it since whatever is on it is sure to be severly outdated and may cause problems. The CD ROM is very generic (it is simply listed as ATAPI 40x in windows) and I doubt there is much of a support site, if any, but I will look. The drive is quite loud, and it SHOULD spin up at boot time if there is a cd in it and cdrom is first in the boot order correct?

P.S. I do have the drive manual in hardcopy, it is very short and to the point, not having anything useful in it.
 
#4 ·
I built the system myself, so I installed win98 on it initially, and have recently upgraded to XP. Yes, the screen after memory count does include the CD ROM drive. Not sure what you mean by your question " is it set to AUTO " ... you mean in the BIOS? In the BIOS it just lists nothing under secondary master, which is what the cd rom drive is jumpered as.
I'm not sure about the floppy, I think so and I'll look for it, though I'd be hesitant to use it since whatever is on it is sure to be severly outdated and may cause problems. The CD ROM is very generic (it is simply listed as ATAPI 40x in windows) and I doubt there is much of a support site, if any, but I will look. The drive is quite loud, and it SHOULD spin up at boot time if there is a cd in it and cdrom is first in the boot order correct?

P.S. I do have the drive manual in hardcopy, it is very short and to the point, not having anything useful in it.
 
#5 ·
Hi, No, don't try the real mode floppy under XP.
Yes, the drive normally would spin up, sometimes they just don't read anything. If you are sure the cables are correct (if you can use the drive in Windows, they must be) there is something else wrong.
Incompatibiltiy has set in....
You could refresh the boot sector with a bootdisk, but I am not familiar enough with doing that under XP...
In win98, you just boot up with the floppy bootdisk and type sys c: at the A:>
I did mean to look in the BIOS under the IDE hard drives for a CDROM entry, some report only a Secondary Master and it is usually set to AUTO on the right side of that entry, each drive is usually shown as AUTO...in the BIOS, there is another setting
"IDE detection" or similar....that should be "AUTO". Check also for something like Onboard PCI IDE....this enables both Primary and Secondary IDE channels of motherboard.
Some BIOSes have the setting (same place where AUTO shows) that you can change to CDROM....some do not.
problem sounds like XP just will not support the real mode "boot" for your drive. Here is something to support that- from the HP website, if true for their machines, it may be what your problem is::

"attempting to recover a computer that was upgraded to XP
If an HP Pavilion computer that originally came with Windows 98 or Me is upgraded to Windows XP (or 2000), there is a good chance that the computer will no longer accept its original recovery discs. This happens because the file system was changed from FAT32 to NTFS during the upgrade. If this is the case, the recovery program can longer find a valid partition on the hard drive. "

You may have to Delete the NON-DOS partitions and format under FAT32. But, wait till we make sure. It's one way or the other and I am too sleepy to search for the answer right now...either NTFS cant see/read FAT32 or vice versa.

There may be a fix for this- but it would probably be a BIOS flash or update which can be a dangerous problematic thing to do and result in a non-working motherboard very easily. Any branded drive should have a support site::

http://www.memorex.com/service_support/techsupport.php

and a search page for CD discontinuted drives::

http://www.memorex.com/service_support/software_display.php?id=183&dl=p
Might be easier to send them an email----
You need the exact model number.....note that some of the downloadable update files, firmware updates or install disks are not for XP/NT file system....it depends on what you installed FAT32 or NTFS but you would have had to format the hard drive I think to install XP using NTFS, I could be mistaken...if you could check MY Computer, Properties or Properties for Drive C: it should tell you FAT32 or NTFS.
 
#6 ·
I am using Fat32, not NTFS. Though I'm not really sure what the filesystem, or for that matter what os I'm using has to do with it. We're talking BIOS code that's looking for a boot sector to load into memory, I don't see what file systems have to do with that. Thanks for the links, I have sent a message to Memorex, see what they have to say about the matter.
 
#7 ·
Is this the original drive that came with the computer? If not, it be be compatible issues. I've seen many drives to refuse to boot off CD's for no apparent reason or if they had a slave or if set as cable select.

You could try setting the secondary master in the bios to CD-ROM or Auto if it allows you - try autodetect or manually selecting that option. You could also try leaving CD-ROM as the only thing in the boot sequence or updating the bios. You could check to see if the CD-ROm is set to Master or Cable Select - if its on CS change it to master.

A different CD-ROM may be the only solution.
 
#8 ·
The problem seemed to involve booting from a CD, which I took to mean the Recovery or Restore CD, either originals or a copy you have made, in any case, a Windows CD should be bootable...there is a problem when the operating system is changed to XP, because there is an option when installing XP to use the NTFS filesystem, which as the link I posted (The quote from an HP page, too) says, can result in a system not being able to boot from a CD, simple as that. If you stayed with the FAT32 as Win98 or SE uses, well that would not be the problem.
Good luck with this- keep trying.
Think I've read that some DVD readers have a problem booting from Restore CDs it recommends that you use a regular CDROM drive to run Restores/ installing Windows.
 
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