Can't boot from Windows CD.

  • Thread starter Thread starter KieranMurphy
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KieranMurphy

KieranMurphy

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murphykieran
Aargh! Windows XP has died on me. It won't boot at all. It won't even boot into Safe Mode or Last Stable Settings (or whatever it's called). It starts booting, and when the bar at the bottom of the screen is about a third of the way across, the screen goes blank for a few seconds and an error message comes up but it's gone so quickly that I haven't a clue what it says.

At least I've still got access to Linux though so I've been able to gain access to the C:/ partition and backed up all my files to DVD.

So far so good. I planned to just go ahead and reinstall Windows and all my software. But I can't boot from the Windows CD. I checked my BIOS settings and the order of boot is floppy, CD and then HD so that's okay. But when the PC boots up it goes straight to the Lilo program on the HD that lets me choose between Linux and Windows. It won't boot from the Windows CD at all. I got a loan of a friends Windows XP disc and it won't boot from it either.

Isn't that a bit strange? The CD/DVD drive is obviously working okay because I can burn disks and read disks no problem.

Anyone got a clue as to why this might be happening?


KM.
 
Sounds like your computer won't boot from the cd-rom because it's not set up to. Restart your computer, and when it goes into the screen, hit the delete key to go to bios. Get into the bios and change the bootup to CD-Rom instead of the Floppy drive it's probably on right now. After that it should boot from the windows disc. Good luck with that, tell me what happens after that. :dopey:
 
OmicroN
Sounds like your computer won't boot from the cd-rom because it's not set up to.
Click to expand...
If you read my post you'd realise that I've already said that it's set to boot from the CD.


KM.
 
You could try booting from the Linux CDs and formatting the Windows partition. Then, install windows. I have a feeling that windows is somehow preventing the boot from CD. It might, however, be a problem with Lilo. Do you get any messages before Lilo starts? That's when the CD should boot (at least it does for me).
 
I thought of that, but how is Linux or Lilo or Windows doing anything to prevent the CD boot? The BIOS is trying to boot from CD before it even attempts to read anything from the hard drive. I can't see how anything I have installed on the HD could be preventing the CD from booting if the CD is meant to be booted before the HD is read.


KM.
 

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