Not allowed to boot from secondary drive?

[thorthemighty]

I have finally got all my bits together so that I can start building a new computer. After installing the hardware I find that I am unable to boot from XP cd.
Have set the cd rom to be the the 1st boot drive but all I get is the 'booting from cd' message followed by a blank screen with flashing cursor in the top left hand corner.
I have an Abit IS7 board with two hard drives on IDE1 and a Pioneer 107 DVD rewriter(from which I am trying to boot) as master on IDE2.
I know that the XP cd is ok as my old computer can boot from it with no troubles so could the problem be that you cannot boot from a secondary drive or maybe I have to do something to the dvd rewriter to make it bootable?
and I thought I knew how to install XP!

 

[rubikian]

when you boot from the cd, it will ask you to press any key to boot from the cd when the cd is read from your cdrom. If you don't press when the message is out, you will boot from your HDD, which is empty...


P4 1.7Ghz @ 2GHz, 512MB PC800 RDRAM, 64MB Abit Ti4200, 60GB Maxtor, 120GB Western Digital, 48x24x42 TDK CDRW, 16X ASUS DVDROM, SB! live 5.1DE, Lifeview 3000 TV card

 

[thorthemighty]

yes I see the 'press any key' to boot from cd message on my old system. I don't see that with my new computer. Could this be because my new pc has a 3Ghz P4 compared to the 300MHz P2 of my old one and that the message flashes up so much more quickly that it can't be seen?

 

[rubikian]

I don't think so because that message will stay for about 3 to 5 seconds, I can't remember which one. Just make sure that you detect the CDROM correctly in the BIOS and the CDROM is working fine. Is everything new in your computer?

P4 1.7Ghz @ 2GHz, 512MB PC800 RDRAM, 64MB Abit Ti4200, 60GB Maxtor, 120GB Western Digital, 48x24x42 TDK CDRW, 16X ASUS DVDROM, SB! live 5.1DE, Lifeview 3000 TV card

 

[thorthemighty]

The dvd rewriter is detected correctly by the bios and everything is indeed new. Maybe bootable cds don't work in dvd rewriters?

 

[peartree]

No, it's not likely that you can't boot from DVD rewriters. Yet you DO get the 'Booting from CD...' message. How long do you wait before you decide that it's hung?

You don't mention what BIOS you have in the machine. The 'Press any key' message IS supposed to stay up for a few seconds before it goes on to boot to some other drive, but if you have nothing else listed, that may be bypassed (I guess). I'd have to try setting the floppy drive as first boot and the DVD_RW as second. Then you could either use a Win 98 boot disk to boot up with CD support and wait to see if it detects the DVD drive, then switch to it and run setup, or you could leave the floppy drive empty and see if it goes to the 'Press any' message after finding no floppy to boot from. It's kind of tough without being there. Even the smallest missed clue could be the key.

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>

 

[thorthemighty]

I replaced the dvd rewriter with the cd rewriter from my old system and now the xp cd does boot.
It is strange because all my ide drives are identifed correctly from the bios so it does seem like that I am unable to boot from the pioneer 107, i.e. bios sees dvd but does not boot from it.

 

[peartree]

Yes, that is uncommon, but not a first. I'd guess that there is some slight incompatibility between the drive and the motherboard. Once you get the chance, you might want to see if a firmware update is available from the drive maker that may help. I'm guessing that the motherboard maker won't care enough about one report to make a fuss over it.

<font color=green>****</font color=green> Never Assume <font color=red>ANYTHING</font color=red> <font color=green>****</font color=green>

 

[rubikian]

My ASUS DVDROM can boot up easily with winXP CD. Probably you might want to look for the DVDROM bios flash if available. Try it out again after flashing.

P4 1.7Ghz @ 2GHz, 512MB PC800 RDRAM, 64MB Abit Ti4200, 60GB Maxtor, 120GB Western Digital, 48x24x42 TDK CDRW, 16X ASUS DVDROM, SB! live 5.1DE, Lifeview 3000 TV card

 

[thorthemighty]

The problem lies in the dvd drive. I have just tried it two systems and although it is recognised, it is unable to read disks. So that explains it all and I'll have to start thinking about getting a replacement.

 

[Zoron]

Also, when installing XP on a new hard drive (or a hard drive with no bootable partition), you will NOT get the 'Press any key to boot from CD...' message; instead it will boot directly into the setup.

<font color=red> If you design software that is fool-proof, only a fool will want to use it. </font color=red>