XP wont boot from CD

[Riley]

Hard to keep my tale of woe succinct!

 

A year ago I reformatted my rather aged PC to install a new Licenced version of XP. It didnt like it much, had a few glitches but got it up and running, limped along all summer, very slow, odd crash, often hanging.Pity really, it worked like a dream on my unofficial version of XP pro. I was persuaded for security sake to do the change over.

Summer is too busy for me to look at PC problems cos they are always time consuming.. so left it till now, my quiet time Soooo

Reinstalled Windows XP (full not quick) first it wouldnt power down, googled that and found in Eldergeek the power setting to change and spotted some typical XP reinstall problem solutions which I thought may be useful as I then started getting blue screen of death and restart. The error message led me to a link which said it was probably my old cd drive, which certainly on their site saidmy drive was for Windows 95 and 98! No problem methinks, get a new one. Needless to say that wasnt the problem. .... a friend suggesting checking memory connections.... Ughhhh so much dust and filth in there! (Can someone tell me why I paid so much money for what looks like a an empty box!?) Memory is beside a small fan so was covered in a layer of fine dust, cleaned up and put em back and hey! No more blue screen.... but still had no sound, it wasnt seeing my sound card....no device manager warnings... after blue screen scenario I thought ok best to reinstall, no big deal as I hadnt got further than the basic install.. no settings or programmes installed!

BUT now it wont boot from cd.. the screen goes so fast but at the point it should say press any key to boot from CD I can see it say boot from CD .....failure and goes on to boot normally.

 

Have I well and truly F%%$#@ this up? , is it just passed its sell by date? the motherboard and some other bits are 5 yrs old, rest and the graphics and sound card must be 7/8 years old

 

I guess I have more or less accepted that it all just not up to a new version of windows and that I will have to replace it, but havent got loads of spare dosh and just thought someone would have a good idea? In any case I'd love to know why it wont boot from CD, just for future reference, and cos I hate being beaten! ( I do have a 2nd PC which my home PC which does all the work, the old PC was downgraded mainly just to do interenet work in my office and a bit of accounting/word stuff. No otherheavy programmes.) Bear in mind you are talking to someone with only a little knowledge, the kind that is dangerous!

[chesters1]

you may have to go into the bios to force it to boot from CD and nothing else (first boot device ,no second or third) then once XP restarts the first time re enter the bios and set it to boot from disk 0 then CD.

some pc's are pigs to get new software on but 5 years is old but still its XP usuable.

if the soundcard is that old then i wouldnt bother especially if its a creative ,nice card but shoddy software ,if you desperately need the card install in safe mode then pray then go to the creative site and autoupdate ,if it doesent see your card its incorrectly installed but if it does see it don't get your hopes up it still probably wont work fully

Edited January 25, 2008 by chesters1

[Riley]

you may have to go into the bios to force it to boot from CD and nothing else (first boot device ,no second or third) then once XP restarts the first time re enter the bios and set it to boot from disk 0 then CD.

some pc's are pigs to get new software on but 5 years is old but still its XP usuable.

Thanks , but that is how it is set.

[chesters1]

hmmm keep pressing a key throughout boot? what make is the pc or is it home grown ,is it a full version of xp or an upgrade?can you boot from a 98 CD on it if so then the xp vesion may have dirt or a scratch etc ,

does it stop with a cant find operating system error?

generally when windows refuses to shut down its the stutdown "song" corrupted so disable it

XP does need more memory than 98 not getting turns it into a slug

Edited January 25, 2008 by chesters1

[Riley]

hmmm keep pressing a key throughout boot? what make is the pc or is it home grown ,is it a full version of xp or an upgrade?can you boot from a 98 CD on it if so then the xp vesion may have dirt or a scratch etc ,

does it stop with a cant find operating system error?

generally when windows refuses to shut down its the stutdown "song" corrupted so disable it

 

Nah... tried keep pressing key

full version XP

havent got 98 any more, wasnt a real one anyway!

No Cd is fine. Was able to resinstall through Autorun if i wanted, but it doesnt let you delete the old OS or the partition or install over the top, so couldnt proceed that way.

No, has no problem finding the OS.

No the shut down thing is a power setting, I had it with the old XP Prof too. That bit was easy.

Thanks

Keep em comin'!

[chesters1]

if its the original drive and a shop bought PC then you have a hidden partition that is designed to stop you messing with the software.

not so easy now unless its in FAT16 or 32? , you have to go down the long forgotten DOS route by booting from the first DOS disk and using FDISK remove ALL the partitions ,then use FDISK to partition it again hopefully destroying the partition BUT some PC would even let you do that as it probably has a password enabled to protect it,so hook your drive out and install it as a slave in another and use XP to fiddle with it under "disk management" you can then format it to whatever system you want BUT DOS wont see NTFS in the future if you go down that route again and you will have to use FAT again.you can return again to NTFS using windows if you wish but it as far as i know a one way trip.

there maybe third part software that allows you to remove the hidden partition ,partition magic?

been a long time since i played with DOS

 

dragging my mind back does your PC have autoexec and config sys files? (in C:/ NOT windows) probably hidden but their maybe a boot manager within one which controls how the pc starts ,if there is copy and paste it here

Edited January 25, 2008 by chesters1

[Riley]

Sorry not that either its been reformatted from W95 (embarrassed cough! yep that old!) to W98 and then to XP pro... that was all easy peasy.

Custom built, was a pretty good machine when it was new!

[Riley]

Any one there???..... No one EVER heard of this?

[Riley]

Just in case anyone is interested it has been suggested that it may be the CD drive cable.... quite possible as rough is my middlename and I did take the old one out and put another in... maybe I pulled too hard?.....that WOULD be a nice surprise as i was preparing to save up for a new one.