CD-works in XP - pro but won't let met boot from it

[tylerdurdan66]

The light on the cd drive never even comes on. I have a Dell Dimension L700cx. After starting the system with xp the cd rom work fine. I have updated the bios to be sure it is the most current. For boot up choices I have ide-hdd, floppy, apti(? not sure if that is the right letter but someting like this) floppy, and apti(?) cd-rom. I didnt have a choice of ide-cd-rom. The cd rom is on the master on the second IDE channel. I tried both Auto and manually choosing cd but ide-cd-rom never appears as a boot up choice. I have installed at least two operating systems on this machine in the past so it did boot at one time. I am ready to junk this PC is this premature?

 

[tylerdurdan66]

One more thing, I need to boot from the cd-rom to reinstall xp.

 

[franklin97355]

In the BIOS boot order set the CD drive above the hard drive. I set it second below the floppy for convience.

 

[rvnguy]

tylerdurdan66,

Try the following (if you are not):

complete power down.
start and press "F9" repeatedly
This chould provide a screen for selecting boot device
if so select cd and press enter
and possibly enter again
this should then boot the CD

alternate:
In BIOS set the boot sequence to CD first remove(temporairly) all other boo devices to force only the CD
Save settings and re-boot.

get Back

rvnguy

 

[BadBigBen]

@tylerdurdan66 - ATAPI (AT-Bus Attachment Packet Interface) is the interface name of IDE Optical Drives...

So Boot Order, in the BIOS Setup, should/could read FDD, ATAPI, HDD, or ATAPI, FDD, HDD, or ATAPI, HDD, FDD (if you never use the Floppy)... and don't forget to F10 it...




Ben

If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer...