How long to boot from CD?

[Stan Brown]

I tried booting my laptop (1.8 GHz) from CD (24x read). I got a one-
liner about "checking your hardware", then a black screen while the
hard drive ran and the CD didn't, for a couple of minutes until
finally I rebooted.

Does it take the OEM Windows XP CD a long time to boot up, after the
CD itself has stopped being read?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Hardware Malfunction Results in System Error Message
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315223

Setup may restart during the hardware detection phase of Windows XP installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891892

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I tried booting my laptop (1.8 GHz) from CD (24x read). I got a one-
| liner about "checking your hardware", then a black screen while the
| hard drive ran and the CD didn't, for a couple of minutes until
| finally I rebooted.
|
| Does it take the OEM Windows XP CD a long time to boot up, after the
| CD itself has stopped being read?
|
| --
| Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
|

 

[Steve N.]

I tried booting my laptop (1.8 GHz) from CD (24x read). I got a one-
liner about "checking your hardware", then a black screen while the
hard drive ran and the CD didn't, for a couple of minutes until
finally I rebooted.

Does it take the OEM Windows XP CD a long time to boot up, after the
CD itself has stopped being read?

I've seen this caused by a corrupt or foriegn to Windows MBR or
partition. Oddly, this doesn't happen booting from a Win2K CD. If you
are trying to do a clean install I suggest using a zero fill utility on
the drive, otherwise try booting a Win98se diskette and run FDISK /MBR
to re-write the MBR.

Steve

 

[Steve N.]

Hardware Malfunction Results in System Error Message
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315223

Setup may restart during the hardware detection phase of Windows XP installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891892

Niether articles apply to the situation. Please actually READ the OP,
Carey. There was no error message, nor a restart until the OP manually
restarted.

Steve

 

[Stan Brown]

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 13:24:51 -0500 in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, Carey Frisch [MVP] favored us
with...

Hardware Malfunction Results in System Error Message
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315223

Setup may restart during the hardware detection phase of Windows XP installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;891892

Neither of those happened when I booted.

 

[Stan Brown]

I tried booting my laptop (1.8 GHz) from CD (24x read). I got a one-
liner about "checking your hardware", then a black screen while the
hard drive ran and the CD didn't, for a couple of minutes until
finally I rebooted.

Does it take the OEM Windows XP CD a long time to boot up, after the
CD itself has stopped being read?

I've seen this caused by a corrupt or foriegn to Windows MBR or
partition.[/QUOTE]

Bingo! I have a foreign MBR, the GRUB loader from Linux. Thanks,
Steve, especially for the fast response! (I wish others would
actually read the question before they post a canned answer.)

I'm not actually trying to do a repair now, but to get the mechanisms
in place in case I need to do one later. I guess the next thing to
try is to set the Windows partition active -- that bypasses GRUB when
booting from hard disk so I'll see if it works when booting from CD-
ROM.

I'll report the results here.

 

[Steve N.]

Bingo! I have a foreign MBR, the GRUB loader from Linux.

Yup, had the exact same thing happen to me last week.

Thanks,
Steve, especially for the fast response!

You're welcome Stan.

(I wish others would
actually read the question before they post a canned answer.)

You're not the only one!

I'm not actually trying to do a repair now, but to get the mechanisms
in place in case I need to do one later. I guess the next thing to
try is to set the Windows partition active -- that bypasses GRUB when
booting from hard disk so I'll see if it works when booting from CD-
ROM.

That may not work. In my recent case the Windows was the default boot OS
(if that's what you mean by making the Windows partition active) and the
same condition occured. I believe to do a reapir install of Windows
you'll need to rewrite the MBR and after the Windwos repair do a repair
install of Linux to get GrUB back.

I'll report the results here.

Ok, good luck!

Steve

 

[Stan Brown]

[/QUOTE]

("this" is the install CD hanging with a black screen, no CD
activity, and constant unending hard-drive activity)

Yup, had the exact same thing happen to me last week.

That may not work. In my recent case the Windows was the default boot OS
(if that's what you mean by making the Windows partition active) and the
same condition occured. I believe to do a reapir install of Windows
you'll need to rewrite the MBR and after the Windwos repair do a repair
install of Linux to get GrUB back.

I had the same experience you did. And I think the install CD
actually trashed my C: drive. After I tried the experiment, about 36
hours ago, Windows started crashing more and more frequently. Finally
it wouldn't boot at all -- I got BSODs with different error messages,
even in Safe Mode.

To cure it I wiped out the Linux partitions (highly annoying that
Windows won't work if another operating system is on the disk, even
if it's not active) and restored C: from my latest backup, then
manually re-applied certain selected changes since that backup.