what's the story with some PCs set to boot from CDROM, yet it cannot do it?

[abc]

I've had experiences with some pcs where you go into the BIOS and select CDROM as the first boot device, slide in a OS cd, such as windows 2000, and then powerup the PC, yet it cannot initiate the install.

This is with the cdrom as Master on the Secondary IDE, as well as trying the CDROM as Slave on the Primary...


The Cdrom blinks, then stops...


With other PCs that doesnt work, it does say Boot failed....
t
hten asks insert system disk....

just wondering what the story is with the quirk with some pcs.

 

[TimeKeeper]

possible cause

1. NOT OEM CD.
2. Dupe CD, but CDROM unable to read Dupe CD correctly.
...............hmm....getting late, that's all I can think of...........

 

[alkemyst]

I think some CDROMs are incapable of booting even though you can set it in the BIOS.

 

[MrChicken]

Yep, older cdroms cant boot....

Copied CD's that dont have the session closed wont boot on cdroms that dont support multi-session (older cdroms).

 

[abc]

hmm a 'older' cdrom would be back in the mid 90s or so wouldn't it?... something made in 2000 should be multisession able wouldnit it?

Like a Toshiba DVDromdrive......?

 

[ginfest]

It's a shot in the dark but I had the same problem with an old Mitsumi 24x not being recognized in the BIOs and of course not being able to boot, on a CUSL-2 mainboard. I changed the cable(had forgot that I used an old 40 pin IDE cable when building this 2nd machine) for an 80 pin and the BIOS recognized the drive and booted from it.
Hope this helps,
Mike G

 

[MrChicken]

Yep, old would be about 3+ yrs old....

Any DVD drive should be fine.

 

[abc]

hey mrchicken, i used a toshiba dvd because a cdrom (asus) did not work.. and this still didnt work, wouldn't boot from it...

popped in a oem silver cd into the cdrom (asus)and it booted....


that tells me the asus did not handle a opened session cd i guess....

but does that also tell me my toshiba dvd also does not handle an open sessioned cd?


the lat tidbit is, i think 6 months ago last i booted off my dvdrom toshiba on a different pc... it did work... with the same cd...

 

[MrChicken]

Well, that's surprise....

What model number is it? We can look up the specs and see if supports multisession. It might just be "broke", seeing as how you think it worked before.

We might as look up the specs on that Asus cdrom too, what model number is it?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I don't know which board you're using but on my Asus A7N266-VM if I press delete to enter the bios before I let the bios show the DVD or CD-RW drive (whichever I have the boot disc in)has been detected first then the drive is unavailable as a boot device. Perhaps your board requires the drive's firmware be ID'ed as well?

 

[dkozloski]

Besides all of the above, some laptop manufacturers deliberately fiddle the BIOS so the only CD-ROM that will boot is their own system reinstall/repair disk. If you want to install an alternate operating system you have to be able to boot from a floppy startup disk and read a CD at the same time. In the case of my Sony Vaio I had to buy a $75 adapter cable to operate the floppy drive off the parallel port. Some SCSI adapters will only boot from a propprietary format as well.