Can't boot up to CD

Question

Hello, I've already posted this question in the CD/DVD forum and everyone seemed stumped, so I am hoping that maybe someone here can help. I have a Dimension 3000 system, and went to reintall windows. I ended up making a mistake (installed Pro instead of Home) and decided to rectify it by clean installing Home with the cd that came with the computer. However, I can't boot up from the CD (philips dvdrw 8631) to install XP home. What's worse, I tried to copy the install CD to an external hard drive and install it from there in hopes that it would make everything ok. Of course, it made it worse. Now I am unable to boot up at all, and can't boot up to a cd. So the computer has become nonfunctional and i'm completely stumped. Any thoughts on what to do? Much thanks in advance

PETER345 · Answer

What happens when you try to boot from the CD? Do you get an error or is just not an option? Did you try pressing F12 at boot time and selecting the CD? Peter

nyctravis · Answer

Thanks for the reply. Yes I hit F12 and get the CD as an option. When I select that option, the green light on the drive lights up (as if it wants to do it) but then gives up and tries to boot from the hard drive. Before I up the hard drive, it would continue on that route after attempting (and failing) to boot to the cd. The drive was working perfectly before I did this, so I find it hard to believe that suddenly I would a hardware failure at the same time.

I've selected the CD as the primary boot device in the BIOS as well and it seems to attempt it, but poops out and reverts to the hard drive.

thanks again

Message Edited by nyctravis on 11-06-2006 06:14 PM

PETER345 · Answer

Can you read from the CD drive on the D3000? If not, you might check the cables.

If the drive is going to fail, it will fail sometime and maybe yours just happened to fail right after installing Windows.

Peter

Uncle Ripper · Answer

If you have a floppy drive make a boot disk from another computer and use fdisk.  If you have no floppy get an external usb floppy from walmart, they'll work to.  Any windows 98 or me boot disk will work.

PETER345 · Answer

Have you tried another disc just in case the disc went bad? Try booting the disc in another machine (if you have one) to make sure it is good. Can you read the CD? Peter

nyctravis · Answer

Thanks-I have an external USB floppy and made some boot disks from bootdisk.com but i can't seem to select the external floppy as a bootup option from the F12 menu.

rickmktg · Answer

nyctravis wrote:
Thanks for the reply. Yes I hit F12 and get the CD as an option. When I select that option, the green light on the drive lights up (as if it wants to do it) but then gives up and tries to boot from the hard drive. Before I up the hard drive, it would continue on that route after attempting (and failing) to boot to the cd. The drive was working perfectly before I did this, so I find it hard to believe that suddenly I would a hardware failure at the same time.

I've selected the CD as the primary boot device in the BIOS as well and it seems to attempt it, but poops out and reverts to the hard drive.

thanks again

If you have two CD/DVD drives, put the disk in the other one.

nyctravis · Answer

I don't think it can read, but am not sure as I can't get the computer to start up. I guess maybe I will have to just buy a new drive. I hope I can find that is compatible. I just need to get one that fits the bay and is IDE? Is there anything else I need to know to ensure that it's compatible? This is so frustrating!

nyctravis · Answer

Thanks again for the help. Yes I've put the cd in 2 of my other dell computers (both are laptops) and it works fine there. That's how I copied the cd to an external hard drive to try to install it on the desktop that I'm having the problem with.

Unfortunately, the other 2 pc's are laptops so I can't use them on the desktop. The drive won't boot up the XP Pro cd's from my laptops either. However, I'm hesitant to run out and get another cd/dvd drive because I find it really hard to believe that the drive just happened to fail physically in coincidence with reinstalling windows. In addition, the BIOS sees it fine and the drive lights up and spins before the computer ends up giving up on it and attempting to boot up to the C drive. I just don't know what to do-i'm afraid if i go out and buy a new dvd/cd drive that the problem isn't the hardware and it will be the same problem.

thanks again in advance

PETER345 · Answer

Pretty much any IDE drive should work. As suggested previously, you could try booting from a floppy (if you have one) and seeing if the CD works.

It is hard to debug a system without a good selection of spare parts.

Peter

nyctravis · Answer

Ok, I guess I'll go get another CD drive. Most of them on the market seem to say "EIDE" although the Dimension says it's an IDE. Is EIDE the same as IDE, or is it compatible?

To answer the other questions, I did try to 2 XP Pro cd's and neither will boot up either. I have an external floppy but the computer doesn't seem to want to allow that as an option when selecting F12 at startup. Ugh....

sparkenh · Answer

Did you try to boot with XP Pro CD too? Message Edited by sparkenh on 11-06-2006 09:06 PM

nyctravis · Answer

It's not a silly question-i'm just glad to have any help as this is really stumping me. I'm not hitting the space bar, but I'm not getting to the point where it says 'hit any key to boot up from cd.' It seems to WANT to do this. In other words, I start up, hit F12, and then select 'IDE CD-ROM' as the startup device. Then the computer pauses as if it to attempt that, the green light on the cd drive lights up and it starts spinning away. After about 5 seconds or so it stops and then boots up to the hard drive. While the drive is lit up and spinning the cursor just blinks on the screen and does not move on to the 'press any key to boot up from cd' message.   oh-the keyboard is just a regular USB keyboard that came with the pc (not wireless).   Ugh! thx again for any and all help....

HiGhLaNdEr48 · Answer

nyctravis, This may be a silly question but are you hitting the space bar when you get the message to hit any key to boot from cd?If you do not the computer will boot to hard drive.Also are you using a wireless keyboard if so this may be the problem,and remove the external HD connection. Message Edited by HiGhLaNdEr48 on 11-07-2006 01:51 PM

nyctravis · Answer

i ended up buying a new cd drive and set the jumper to master and it worked fine. so i guess something funky did happen to the drive after all. perhaps check your jumper too-mine was set to 'cable' and i'm not sure if i had moved it to 'master' if that would have fixed it or not. in any event, i have 2 optical drives now!

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