Can't Change To CD for Reinstall

[Guest]

For some reason I have tried everything in the Bios to change from hard disk
start up to CD and it still will not boot up from CD. Does anyone know if
there is a way to format my C; drive without having to boot from CD first?
The options I have under Boot Device are: First Boot Device, Second Boot
Device, Third Boot Device, and Boot Other Device is set to ENABLED. I have
these options to choose from for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Boot Device.....Floppy,
LS120, HDD-0, SCSI, CDROM, HDD-1, HDD-2, HDD-3, ZIP100, LAN, Disabled. I
have tried switching everything from Floppy to HDD-1. Still nothing. I know
I did a clean install in the past without having to switch devices. I
believe I formatted first. Once again does anyone know how to do this?
Thanks.

 

[John]

If you have 2 DVD/CD drives put the cd in the other drive, or you can create
win98se boot disk by downloading from here.
http://www.mbhs.edu/~jaosborn/boot98se.exe
Boot from fthe newly created floppy and FDISK not FORMAT your C:\ drive
This will force stratup to bot from DVD/CD.
--
Regards

John

MCP Windows XP Professional


"ali6son(removethis)@hotmail.com"

 

[Guest]

This is just a guess, but in your BIOS, is your CD ROM labled as a hard drive
or a CD ROM? The reason I ask is because I used to have a dreaded eMachine
with the same problem. When I first accessed the BIOS, I selected the
Secondary Master IDE component (my CD ROM) and double clicked it. It was
listed as a hard drive without any parameters. I had to use the plus sign
until CD ROM was highlighted as the Drive Type. I then saved BIOS and
everything worked fine.

For some reason, BIOS thought it was a hard drive and consequently could
boot to a CD ROM that it couldn't see.

That may be an eMachine thing, not sure though.

 

[Guest]

This is just a guess, but in your BIOS, is your CD ROM labled as a hard drive
or a CD ROM? The reason I ask is because I used to have a dreaded eMachine
with the same problem. When I first accessed the BIOS, I selected the
Secondary Master IDE component (my CD ROM) and double clicked it. It was
listed as a hard drive without any parameters. I had to use the plus sign
until CD ROM was highlighted as the Drive Type. I then saved BIOS and
everything worked fine.

For some reason, BIOS thought it was a hard drive and consequently could
boot to a CD ROM that it couldn't see.

That may be an eMachine thing, not sure though.

 

[Mickey Mouse]

Heres another thought for you (you may have already tried this)
1 change bios to boot from cd first
2 insert you windows cd
3 leave the cd in the drive and POWER OFF (NOT RESTART)
4 wait about 30 secs and reboot
5 you get option to format
I always do a clean wipe before re-installing

Good luck Al
Mickey