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Help required - can't boot into xp cd

B

blade12

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 29, 2005
Messages
346
Hey, I have been having a big problem trying to boot into windows xp installation cd. I set my 1st boot option, 2nd boot option and 3rd boot option to cd-rom to try and boot up my xp cd. Unfortunately, I never see the "Press any key to boot from cd" prompt show up. I can't figure out what could be wrong exactly and I even went into the bios a few times to make sure that the boot option stay on cd-rom... That really isn't a problem..

There is one thing I didn't mention yet: My IDE harddrive is set to "IDE Channel 4 Master" and my dvd-drive is set to "IDE Channel 4 Slave". Do I have to switch up the pins to make harddrive slave and dvd-drive master or is it fine the way it is? Outside of trying that possibly, I don't know what to do next. I even tried putting in my windows vista cd(I KNOW for sure that it, along with my windows xp cd, is both bootable since I have reformatted in the past with it).

- Is it possible that my dvd-drive is dead and doesn't read the cd? The dvd-drive opens up fine but it is about 4 years old.
- Is it possible that the hard-drive is dead? If it was dead though, would the prompt to boot from cd ever show up?
 
You might want to open the case and unplug the hard drive ribbon cable and power connection leaving only the DVD drive hooked up. When you reboot the computer it will have no other drive to boot to and if it doesn't boot then, try to boot to the same disk just to be sure that it's able to be booted to (you never know)

If it still don't boot to the disk with the hard drive unplugged, try another DVD without the hard drive plugged in and see if it boots then. If it does, then it's the drive, if it still doesn't, check and/or replace the cable. If still nothing, the board is damaged and you'll be investing in another computer.
 
With the harddrive wires removed(power cable and the other wire), I tried starting my computer with my windows xp cd in the dvd-drive. It said "DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" right after I reach the "Verifying dmi pool data". Usually, when I am trying to format, the "Press any key to boot from cd" prompt shows up right after verifying dmi pool data.

-Do you think that since my harddrive was in master mode and dvd-drive in slave mode, the computer is trying to find the harddrive? Since it isn't able to find the harddrive(which was in master), it all just goes hay-wire.
-I am really bored with this now but tomorrow, I am going to try running the pc with only the harddrive and without the dvd-drive. Maybe the dvd-drive is dead..

Any other ideas on what to try next?
 
If you totally disconnected the hard drive then the computer doesn't even think it's there. Master or Slave mode don't usually mean anything. I ran my optical drive as a Slave with nothing else on there for months before realizing it. That's just simply a way to get 2 devices on 1 cable. It sounds like your DVD drive if FUBAR. If you have another bootable disk, try that to see if the computer to boot. "Knoppix" is a good disk to have around just for this kind of purpose. If you connect the hard drive, and disconnect your DVD, you'll end up with "NTLDR is Missing" again.
 
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