can't boot from cd

[jwelsh]

Although I had no trouble installing Windows XP Home sometime ago I can no
longer boot from the Windows CD or from a working True Image boot disk.

When I try to boot from the XP setup disk (a purchased, rather than OEM)
disk, or True Image, I get the following message: "CD Boot: couldn't find
ntldr."

I have checked the obvious: my bios is set to boot first from a CD, I
have made no changes to the computer's hardware, bios, partitions or
operating system since the original installation; the computer does boot up
from the hard disk, and Windows XP works fine. In Windows my CD ROM works
with no trouble. Norton Antivirus 2005 and Spyware don't show any problems.

As things stand now I won't be able to reinstall Windows if I ever want to.
I've checked all over the web and haven't found an answer to my problem.
Can anyone help?

 

[CS]

Although I had no trouble installing Windows XP Home sometime ago I can no
longer boot from the Windows CD or from a working True Image boot disk.

When I try to boot from the XP setup disk (a purchased, rather than OEM)
disk, or True Image, I get the following message: "CD Boot: couldn't find
ntldr."

I have checked the obvious: my bios is set to boot first from a CD, I
have made no changes to the computer's hardware, bios, partitions or
operating system since the original installation; the computer does boot up
from the hard disk, and Windows XP works fine. In Windows my CD ROM works
with no trouble. Norton Antivirus 2005 and Spyware don't show any problems.

As things stand now I won't be able to reinstall Windows if I ever want to.
I've checked all over the web and haven't found an answer to my problem.
Can anyone help?

If either the XP Home CD or the True Image boot CD boots OK on another
machine, your CD drive may be defective or dirty. Based on what you
stated above that the machine boots from the HDD, it appears the
trouble may be the CD drive itself.

 

[jwelsh]

Thanks for your response. Yes these disks work in other computers. Since
a defective drive had occurred to me, I first cleaned the drive. It works
fine in Windows, but I can't boot. Given that do you still think the CD
drive could be defective?