Can't boot from CD

[c4rdninj4]

Hello, I just got a new SATA HD, and am trying to either copy my old one over or reinstall windows XP. My error messages point to trouble booting from the optical drive. It is set as master on the cable and the jumper settings. I have also picked it as the primary boot device in the boot menu. In the BIOS menu I have set it as the only boot device. Each time it doesn't recognize that there's a CD in it. I have used an official XP disk, and a burned iso of a cloning program. The drive works fine if I let windows boot normally from the old HD (an IDE) and shows up each time in the BIOS and boot menus.

The error message I receive is something along the lines of Media Failure insert system disk and press enter.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

Sounds like you need a new optical drive to me.

 

[fastx21]

I would suggest you try another known working boot disc. Then you can rule out the drive or not.

 

[c4rdninj4]

My winXP disk is an official disk, and I reformatted my HD (the old IDE) two years ago and used this very disk.

 

[c4rdninj4]

OK, so my roommate lent me a spare copy of Norton Ghost, and I was able work around the CD boot failure. I have my old IDE (C copied to the SATA (D, but even though the D: drive is partitioned as an active and primary (just like C the option to make the copy a bootable drive is greyed out. In the windows disk manager the C drive shows as a system disk, where as the D drive still shows as an active disk.

Is there a way I can convert that to a system disk so I can start booting off my SATA? I didn't see any different options while formatting it, and if I do try to boot from it I get the windows splash screen and then after logging in it gives me a grey background and has a "shutting down" message but freezes on that screen.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

It should just be a copy of the IDE, as in anything that was on it is now wiped because it should simply be an exact image of the old drive. You'd have to do something to the new copy and that's about it.

My first wild guess would be to google and download gparted, boot from that. (which is what I was going to suggest before but this needs a CD drive... or possibly something else if they offer flash booting or something) Then see if what it refers to as a boot flag is checked or not on the newly copied drive. If not, right click it and check that flag.

This is the program I usually use to move the current system OS partition around. I usually after this have to boot from the original install disk and just have it fix the boot sector and whatnot then it'll work. But since you ghosted it maybe this part isn't needed.