[breakfast]

I had an installation of windows 7, and just bought a new audio interface. The drivers weren't supported by 7, and I was having some trouble with it, so I figured I'd just format and go with XP instead.
I popped the windows 7 DVD into the drive, restarted and deleted the partition with my windows install on it. Then I rebooted with the XP disk in the drive, and waited... and waited. What followed was "No bootable device detected." I noticed the BIOS wasn't reading my dvd-rom drive, and POST was running really, really slowly. I flashed the CMOS and it removed the problem - my dvd-rom drive was recognized, and POST was back up to speed.
However, i'm still getting the "no bootable device" message when I start up. I have DVD-rom first on the BIOS boot list, but when I have a dvd in there, the POST process takes a really long time, like it's having trouble reading the disc. I've tried it on other computers, so I know the disc is fine. Has windows 7 somehow bricked my dvd-rom drive, or are there bigger problems afoot?

Please help!

[Ian]

Do you have an option to press F12 to launch the boot menu or something similar? Many motherboards have this option now, and should force your PC to try and boot from CD/DVD. Are you able to boot from the W7 DVD? It could just be that your XP CD is broken and your PC can't boot from it, but tries.

I would strongly recommend persisting with Windows 7 as Windows XP is almost obsolete now (even if it's a good OS). I'm convinced we can get your audio drivers working, especially if it's a new card.

[breakfast]

There's no option for boot menu. I spoke to an IT guy at work today, and he said it's most likely a bricked drive... XP cd works fine in other computers, and before I deleted the partition, my drive would often not detect OS cds.

There simply aren't drivers made for the interface on windows 7 right now, and tbh the interface is the least of my worries, since I can't even get my computer to boot from a CD anymore.

It's just a little puzzling as the drive read both the XP and the windows 7 CD before I baleeted the partition.

Any ideas?

[Ian]

I'm out of ideas so it might be worth swapping DVD drives over with a working one to confirm the problem. Worth a shot

[breakfast]

Have you ever heard of a dvd drive dying so suddenly? It was literally I deleted the partition with the win7 disc, restarted, popped in the winXP disc, and it wasn't working...

Matter of minutes.

[Ian]

It does seem to be too much of a co-incidence, but formatting a drive shouldn't have any effect on the boot stage. If you've got a spare DVD drive you can borrow it would be worth a shot.

[itsme]

Originally Posted by breakfast

Have you ever heard of a dvd drive dying so suddenly? It was literally I deleted the partition with the win7 disc, restarted, popped in the winXP disc, and it wasn't working...

Matter of minutes.

Yes I have had many that just die for no reason, it is something that just happens with all components>

[breakfast]

Yep, sure enough: I switched out my DVD-Rom drive for my buddy's old one (actually a year newer than mine) and here I am, formatting my HD and installing windows.

Who would have thought that a five-year-old optical drive would suddenly just stop working.

[floppybootstomp]

Originally Posted by breakfast

Who would have thought that a five-year-old optical drive would suddenly just stop working.

Well, me for one, lol, optical drives are the most common computer component to break down, I must have got through dozens of them in the last 15 years.

Five years is pretty good going

On the positive side, they is as cheap as chips, comparitively speaking.

Glad to hear you got things sorted