Lost. not sure what else to do

[Guest]

unable to load windows xp home. it wont boot from cd rom. have looked in the
bios and it says that the cd drive is not present, yet it was working fine
before my old hard drive died. I dont have a floopy drive so im stuck
Any advice?

 

[JS]

Was your old hard drive/new drive connected to the same cable as the CD-ROM,
if so make certain that the new drives jumper setting is correct.

JS

 

[Guest]

Hiya, yes the jumpers are correct. Im really at a loss.

 

[Jim]

unable to load windows xp home. it wont boot from cd rom. have looked in
the
bios and it says that the cd drive is not present, yet it was working fine
before my old hard drive died. I dont have a floopy drive so im stuck
Any advice?

Check the cables. It isn't hard to disturb those things. Lack of visibility
in the BIOS implies no connection. Although the drive could be defective
(unlikely in your case).
Jim

 

[Guest]

Hiya Jim, and thanks for the reply. Ok heres where I am just now. computer is
booting. have installed floppy disc drive. all working fine. the cd drive is
powered up and reading because I can here it when I insert a disc. just wont
boot from cd. Any idea's on geting win xp installed or anything. if i put a
floppy in the drive it just says non-system disc or disc error

 

[Cowtoon]

Amanda ... sometimes you have to tell the bios to read first from CD for it
to load the system from the CD (I know this sounds odd). You can always set
it back to your floppy. I've had to do this on three pc's. My present pc
works the same ... when I format my drive and want to reinstall, I have to
change the bios to red the CD first. It's worth a try and I can't see where
it will hurt anything.
Good luck. Diana

Hiya Jim, and thanks for the reply. Ok heres where I am just now. computer
is
booting. have installed floppy disc drive. all working fine. the cd drive is
powered up and reading because I can here it when I insert a disc. just wont
boot from cd. Any idea's on geting win xp installed or anything. if i put a
floppy in the drive it just says non-system disc or disc error

 

[Guest]

Hiya diana, yea thats what I did first. its a dell pc. and just has my hard
drive in the drives. I cant even run a boot disc and get into dos now. its
driving me mad.

 

[Cowtoon]

Change the bios back to booting from floppy first - and if that works ...
tell it to load with CD support and see if it reads your CD. That'll at
least be a clue as to whether it's connected properly.

If it's not reading your CD ... try something as simple as reseating the
cables to your CDrom - both ends, of course. The power portion of the
cables are obviously working, but that's a different connection - that's the
part that has 4 roundish pins.

Then ... reset the bios (again) to boot first from CD, with your Op Sys disk
in the drive, then reboot. Sometimes it will ask if you want to boot from
the CD ... and you might have to press a key to indicate "yes, boot from
CD". Then, it "should" ask if you want to do an install or recovery. Again
.... worth a try.

Alternatively, you could have your numbers ready and give dell a call ...
they might be able to help you over the phone??? I've never dealt with
them. I'd hope they can shed some light on this frustration.


Hiya diana, yea thats what I did first. its a dell pc. and just has my hard
drive in the drives. I cant even run a boot disc and get into dos now. its
driving me mad.

 

[Guest]

Here is what I would do, you say that the system won't boot from the CD
If you on an older CPU you may have a problem there because although your
CDROM may be present the drivers associated with it are not being loaded..

1. Go into your bios first make sure that your new HD is rec correctly.
2. Set your CDROM drive as your First in boot sequence.
2b. MAKE SURE THE INSTALATION DISK IS IN THE DRIVE
3. when it loads "IF" Hit F8 until your loading option screen apears.
4. what you need is to start in dos MODE with Network
5. at command prompt d:\ type setup.exe

This all depends on your BIOS and its age if your running an older computer
2/5 years old then you need to have a floopy drive to load the drivers
associated with the CDROM.

I hope this help ya