Can't boot from XP cd

[Woody]

I need to do a repair my xp installation.
When I try to boot from my xp cd I get a message -
"CD Boot - couldn't find NTLDR.
Cannot boot from CD - Code 4"

I have no idea what this means and would appreciate some suggestions about
what to do next.

 

[RJK]

Quote from:-
http://www.techweb.com/winmag/columns/powerw2k/2000/48.htm
"
2. CD-ROM booting simply does not work for some users.

There are a number of machines I've dealt with personally which did support
CD-ROM booting, but upon booting a CD simply failed to work correctly. In my
case, I've got a PC in this office with a SCSI-based CD-ROM. Attempting to
boot a CD from it -- even though it's supported! -- returns a cryptic error
message that reads CANNOT BOOT FROM CD -- CODE 4 (whatever that means!). No
one I have talked to has the faintest idea what this means.

Sometimes booting from CD does work, but proves to be almost impractical.
Reader Kevin Krieser wrote, "On my Thinkpad, the install of Windows 2000
boots much faster from floppy than from CD. It takes over an hour to boot
the setup program from CD." I have actually observed this on a couple of
other systems myself, and it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the
speed of the CD-ROM drive itself. "

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314057 might point be relevant.

http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/books/sampchap/6795.asp could help.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;119467&

regards, Richard

 

[Alex Nichol]

I need to do a repair my xp installation.
When I try to boot from my xp cd I get a message -
"CD Boot - couldn't find NTLDR.
Cannot boot from CD - Code 4"

NTLDR is the first boot file used to load XP, once the BIOS boot has
invoked the boot sector of the boot partition. So the BIOS has loaded
that sector - but that is failing to read the CD correctly. This *may*
be a matter of the BIOS - you could look for a BIOS update to flash it;
or *may* be a bad CD. Try it on a different machine (there is no need
to do anything once booted) before doing anything more drastic