System won't boot many bootable CDs.

[Codesmith]

I have a large variety of bootable utilites.

Lately I was working on a Shuttle SB75G2 and found it refused to boot CDs that worked find on every other system.

http://global.shuttle.com/Product/Barebone/brb_OverView.asp?B_id=23


At first I blamed the optical drive, a PX-708A which has trouble reading most burnt DVDs.

But when I popped in a spare NEC 3520 I had lying arround I couldn't get anything to boot.

Neither the CDs nor the drive seem to be suffering from any scratches, dirt, dust ...


I ended up using the plextor internally to boot the XP CD the one True Image CD that worked and Ultimate Boot CD and used the NEC 3520 in a USB enclosure any data DVDs I needed.

Also oddly enough the NEC 3520 in its USB enclosure boots fine from systems that support booting from USB devices.

I never tried it as an internal drive.

---

Frankly I am not used to any having problems booting from CDs and I didn't have a chance to experiment

I am just wondering if anyone had a clue as to what was going on?

 

[woshitudou]

Its probably your BIOS's boot code. Check if there are any BIOS updates which could have it fixed. If you end up finding something newer to flash to then be careful flashing.

 

[audiovoodoo]

The only other time I have seen this is when the Optical drive is not connected as the secondary master. I would agree it is worth flashing to the latest bios to see if that helps although there is nothing in the revision history to suggest any known issues..

Shuttle Support Page for this model
Current BIOS revision is FB75S013 (08/27/03)

 

[bacis]

hi
you say
Also oddly enough the NEC 3520 in its USB enclosure boots fine from systems that support booting from USB devices
does your mobo do not support booting from usb?
you should configure you bios to boot from nec driver,or the drive you have the bootable cd.

 

[Codesmith]

The motherboard is just buggy.

When I updated the BIOS and it took me half an hour to get it to power on afterwards. Then it worked fine and passed all the stability tests.

The updated BIOS still didn't fix the problem with boot CDs.

Suprisingly enough despite being weird, the system tested 100% stable one I found theright boot CD, and after I fixed the software problems it worked great.

---
I think it had to do with whether or not the CD emulated a floppy or a hard drive when booting.

I almost got to the point where I could predict whether a given CD would boot or not, when the owner came and picked it up.