abit-vh6 mobo won;t boot from cd-rom

[didds]

am having a hell of a time trying to get a PC with a abit-vh6 mobo to
boot from cdrom. I've tried with various cd-rom drives all to no
avail, so it doesn't seem to be the drives. At boot the bios (award
version 6.00pg or somesuch) lists the harddrive but no cdroms
(although windows recognises the drives fine and uses them OK). I
upgraded the BIOS to the latest available on the abit website (which in
fact was the same as was already on it it appears!) and that didn;t
make any difference.

I am really stuck. Anybody else had the same problem? Its really
pumping my nads...

ian

 

[George Macdonald]

am having a hell of a time trying to get a PC with a abit-vh6 mobo to
boot from cdrom. I've tried with various cd-rom drives all to no
avail, so it doesn't seem to be the drives. At boot the bios (award
version 6.00pg or somesuch) lists the harddrive but no cdroms
(although windows recognises the drives fine and uses them OK). I
upgraded the BIOS to the latest available on the abit website (which in
fact was the same as was already on it it appears!) and that didn;t
make any difference.

Since you didn't say, do you have the option in BIOS Setup to set the boot
order to include the CD-ROM drive? What kind of CD disc is it? Back about
that era, there were quite a few mbrds with BIOS which would not boot from
an El Torito bootable CD-ROM but would boot from a DOS emulation bootable
CD.

 

[didds]

Since you didn't say, do you have the option in BIOS Setup to set the boot
order to include the CD-ROM drive?
affirmative

What kind of CD disc is it? Back about
that era, there were quite a few mbrds with BIOS which would not boot from
an El Torito bootable CD-ROM but would boot from a DOS emulation bootable
CD.

errr... dont understand the question. various cdrom drives of
different makes, and various bootable (allagedly) cds ... windows
95/98/XP installation, linux installation, knoppix linux-on-a-cd etc.

ian

 

[George Macdonald]

errr... dont understand the question. various cdrom drives of
different makes, and various bootable (allagedly) cds ... windows
95/98/XP installation, linux installation, knoppix linux-on-a-cd etc.

Sorry, that was a bit muddled - I should have said "floppy emulation"
instead of "DOS emulation". El Torito bootable specs include "floppy
emulation boot" *and* a method called "no emulation boot" and back in the
early days of bootable CDs, I came across mbrds with a BIOS which would do
the "floppy emulation" method but not the "no emulation" method - IOW the
BIOS was not fully El Torito capable.

The Microsoft bootable OS install discs were/are "no emulation" method.
Bottom line: with those old systems, I could boot from a CD disc I had made
with floppy emulation using CD writing software but could not boot from a
Windows 98 CD.

I've never used your Abit mbrd but it could be that its BIOS was never
updated to conform to full El Torito specs.

 

[hackbox.info]

I've never used your Abit mbrd but it could be that its BIOS was never
updated to conform to full El Torito specs.

Not likelly, Award 6.0 is quite recent, much much older abit boards boot
fine from CDs.
I would check the cabling. Clear cmos, etc.

 

[George Macdonald]

Not likelly, Award 6.0 is quite recent, much much older abit boards boot
fine from CDs.

Well yes, award 6.00 still appears in recent mbrds but it's been around for
6 years at least... since shortly after the Phoenix take-over - Award
version numbers are pretty meaningless anyway; the mbrd mfrs do all the
adding, tweaking and fixing themsleves from a basic code template.

Note I did not say that the flawed BIOSs could not boot from a CD - only
the "no emulation" mode type.

I would check the cabling. Clear cmos, etc.

It's possible that it could be a BIOS Setup issue, especially in view of a
VIA chipset, which CD drive mfrs often ignored as a candidate for
compatibility testing back then - possibly turning off DMA support for that
drive might help but if the drive is readable from standalone DOS+MSCDEX
then it's neither that nor cabling, though a cable change or port move
would be worth a shot I suppose.

 

[George Macdonald]

errr... dont understand the question. various cdrom drives of
different makes, and various bootable (allagedly) cds ... windows
95/98/XP installation, linux installation, knoppix linux-on-a-cd etc.

A further thought: if the BIOS is the problem, it might be worth trying a
boot manager, like www.bootitng.com but you'd have to make space for a boot
partition using the included partition manager (a very good one BTW) first.

And a question: can you read OK from a CD through BIOS routines... after
booting from a say a Win98 Startup floppy disk?

 

[didds]

And a question: can you read OK from a CD through BIOS routines... after
booting from a say a Win98 Startup floppy disk?

if I boot from a boot floppy that loads cdrom drivers I can read the
CDs absolutely fine, yes.

ian