Can't boot from CD - please help!

[weshuang]

I had been having blue screen errors after upgrading my system board to an Epox 8k3A+, so I decided to bite the bullet, reformat the hard drive and reinstall XP Pro. I have a Plex IDE CD-RW.

After reformatting the hard drive by attaching it as a slave in another computer, however, I'm unable to install windows. Although the BIOS sees the hard drive as well as the CD-RW, I get a NTLDR not found error when it tries to boot from CD. I also tried using the various floppy boot disks (including the 6-floppy XP Home set I have) and when it comes time to try to access the CD-RW, the system acts as if its not there.

My question is, how can the CD-RW be recognized in the POST screens but then be unavailable afterwards? Does anyone have a suggestion for me?

Thanks, Wes Huang

 

[Slammy1]

First, make sure the boot sequence lists the CD first. Have you tried going through the floppy first? Doesn't solve the problem at hand, but it would allow you to install. Here's a neat site for this:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Good luck!

 

[weshuang]

I have fiddled with the boot sequence in the BIOS. It's definitely not the problem, since just prior to the NTLDR error message, I get a "BOOT from CD" message.

Also, I have booted from various Boot CD's -- Dos, Win 98, and Win XP. In each case, the system can't recognize the CD-ROM, despite the fact that the BIOS sees it.

 

[gaidensensei]

Can you try in another IDE CD?

Not that it's related or something, but I have a Sony 16x8x32 and it generally sometimes makes cds look as if they were blanks if I put them in for reading, so I only use my dvd drive to read the cds..

here's a couple of sites that came out when I did a search on your error - one two three four

hope it works out..

 

[Slammy1]

I'm sorry I misread your post, I was thinking of a problem I'm having where I can't boot to floppy but it reads fine in windowsXP. I had a missing MTLDR file when I first installed my SCSI HDs to Win2k. Being a noob, I installed from my Win98 directory on my IDE drive then disconnected my IDE drive. Didn't work, of course. Something I read... You can copy the NTLDR file from another computer to the computer you're having the error message on. Never tried it, don't understand it, but it was on a thread on this board and one or two people agreed and no one argued.

Well, it does sound like a CD problem. Your system's not able to use the CD, and it defaults back to your HD. First thing to check is to make sure you have the right drivers on the boot disk. Check Plextor's web site to see if your model needs a special driver for a boot disk, maybe search the knowledgebase for known issues. I know how you feel, I guess I'm lucky I had a friend's computer with a IDE-CDR. I'm sorry I can't be more help.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Why would you put it in another machine to format it? Did you re-partition as well? Did you change the jumper on the drive back to master or single?

 

[weshuang]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Why would you put it in another machine to format it? Did you re-partition as well? Did you change the jumper on the drive back to master or single?

I did that because I thought it was the easiest way to format it. I had the jumper settings on CS, so it worked fine. I had been unable to get my system to boot from the CD, so I couldn't use the easier route of simply booting to the setup disk, then choosing the reformat option.

 

[weshuang]

Originally posted by: Slammy1
Well, it does sound like a CD problem. Your system's not able to use the CD, and it defaults back to your HD. First thing to check is to make sure you have the right drivers on the boot disk. Check Plextor's web site to see if your model needs a special driver for a boot disk, maybe search the knowledgebase for known issues. I know how you feel, I guess I'm lucky I had a friend's computer with a IDE-CDR. I'm sorry I can't be more help.

Got it to work last night. However, I still don't completely get it. I had previously had the CD-RW on a separate IDE bus configured as a master. I then tried configuring it as a slave and putting it on the same bus as the HD. It worked. Anyone have a clue as to why?

 

[jackschmittusa]

Bad ide cable?

 

[weshuang]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
Bad ide cable?

hmmmmm.....