Waiting for CD?

[Kaifu]

I recently put a new system together. The specs are as follows:

WindowsXP Pro SP2
AMD AthlonXP 64 3000+ (939/Venice)
ePoX 9NPA+Ultra motherboard
2GB (2x1GB) Corsair ValueSelect PC3200 DDR
ATI Radeon x800XL DVD Edition
IDE BTC DVD R/RW drive
IDE Maxtor 250GB ATA/133 16MB Cache
SATA Maxtor 60GB 8MB Cache

I tend to play a lot of BF2 on this machine and tend to leave the CD in the DVD drive when I shut down. Every time I boot the machine up with the disc in the drive, the computer "thinks" continuously right after the WindowsXP loading screen disappears. If I take the disc out of the drive, the bootup finishes in about 3-5 seconds. If I leave it in, it seems to take forever, if it ever finishes booting at all.

Any ideas of how I can correctly diagnose this issue and investigate a fix? Other than this particular quirk, the computer runs just fine (*knock on wood*).

 

[OdiN]

Push the eject button.

 

[Kaifu]

No need to be flip.

 

[OdiN]

Flip? That's a new one.

It would fix the problem wouldn't it?

Does it do it on every CD? Have you tried replacing the cable? Have you tried using a different CD drive? Doesn't sound like software to me.

 

[Kaifu]

Flip is new? People tend to point and laugh when I use it because it's so antiquated.

flip

adj : marked by casual disrespect; "a flip answer to serious question"

flip·pant
adj : Marked by disrespectful levity or casualness; pert.

... oh well.

In any case, thank you for responding with some helpful questions.

I've tried a number of CDs and it's the same result. I haven't yet tried replacing the cable. The drive sits solo on the IDE1 channel. I don't have another drive to test with right now but I could scavenge one up if need be.

Isn't there a way to load windows on a step-by-step approval basis?... It's been a while since I've used that particular load option ... Maybe it's a Safe Mode option?

 

[Overkiller]

quick idea..

check your boot order sequence in your bios.

if the cd-rom/dvd-drive is before your main hard drive...swap it.

best of luck

 

[ATsucks]

how long?

 

[sniperruff]

it's trying to boot with the cd. as odin suggested just take out the cd. is that too hard for you?

 

[Kaifu]

Overkiller: I checked the boot order just to make sure, but I didn't have the CD before the hard drive. I took care of that when I finished installing XP... but I checked just to be sure

On a side note, I noticed that I'd use the Slave portion of the IDE cable to connect my system drive. It was showing up as a Slave because the drive jumper was set to System Select. I changed it over to Master and it still didn't fix things.

ATsucks: Upwards of 2 to 3 minutes if it ever completes at all. As I said, pushing eject will make the computer continue to load windows (and by this point, I've grown tired of waiting to clock the load time), but the computer is under my desk so it's a slight inconvenience to pop the drive door every time I boot or reboot the machine.

thanks for the help and questions so far.

 

[Kaifu]

Originally posted by: sniperruff
it's trying to boot with the cd. as odin suggested just take out the cd. is that too hard for you?

Perhaps for someone who has their computer in a place that's easy to access at arm's length and/or goes to the meticulous detail of removing any disks or components from their computer and packing them away in their original packaging before going to bed for the night, but a typical sit-down session with me and my comp rarely has me put everything away.

OK, so I'm a little lazy. That doesn't mean that I should learn to live with this. I'd rather figure out what the root cause of it is than develop RSI from ejecting the disc every time I reboot. ePoX's knowledgebase is somewhat of an enigma when it comes to finding answers to this issue (as in, it doesn't produce anything of relevance, if anything at all), so that's why I've come here to ask the intelligent people for assistance.