Booting stops sometimes at \'Boot from CD/DVD\'

[tandlj]

The PC is about two years old (see details below). Lately, at first rarely but now more or less every time, it hangs after the post (displaying 'Boot from CD/DVD' on two lines). When it doesn't hang, the next step is the Grub boot loader menu display (it's a dual boot with Ubuntu).

In the BIOS there is a setting for stopping the boot process for: "all errors except keyboard" and there is another option for this setting: "no errors" - should I change to that? What would be the risk(s)?

System details:

Operating System
MS Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.00GHz 39 °C
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
4.0GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 399MHz (5-5-5-15)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP45-UD3P (Socket 775)
Graphics
BenQ FP202W @ 1680x1050
512MB GeForce 9600 GT (Undefined) 44 °C
Hard Drives
156GB Western Digital WDC WD1600AAJS-22B4A0 (IDE) 34 °C
733GB Western Digital WDC WD7500AACS-00D6B0 (IDE) 34 °C
Optical Drives
ASUS DRW-20B1LT SCSI CdRom Device
ASUS DRW-20B1LT SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

 

[hunter315]

Change your boot order so you arent always trying to boot off your DVD drive, that is the simpliest way.

I would leave it on all errors except keyboard because for the most part if there is an error during POST its usually pretty significant.

 

[tandlj]

Thank you!

 

[tandlj]

Change your boot order so you arent always trying to boot off your DVD drive, that is the simpliest way.

I would leave it on all errors except keyboard because for the most part if there is an error during POST its usually pretty significant.

I did all of that and it seemed to fix the problem (of the boot process hanging before going to the boot loader). However, first rarely but now every time, the boot process hangs after "Verifying DMI Pool Data". It then used to not hang after a restart (via the power button) but lately it takes 3-4 attempts of booting before it goes through.

I have the latest BIOS and the latest drivers - what else can I do to find the cause of this, or to fix it?

Thanks, Joseph

 

[tandlj]

Best answer selected by tandlj.