"press any key to boot off CD" - still boots of HDD!!

[q_q_anonymous]

i happen to be using virtual pc. but i think this is a windows problem.

I got a blue screen installing windows (This is to be expected since I
know that either my cd (disc not drive) is bad). I wanted to test that
it was bad as expected!

I want to reinstall windows using another disc, but when it says "press
any key to boot off CD" it always boots off HDD.

this seems to be a windows xp cd issue.
I may have considered fiddling in the BIOS but virtual pc won't let me.
I could format the HDD with fdisk, even convert the hdd to fat32 and
wipe the root directory, but these are workarounds to a simple problem!


How do I boot off the CD?

What is happening, is maybe it thought it successfully installed
windows, so it restartd, then it blue screens.
When it restarts, it displays the 'press any key to boot off cd'
message, but whatever you do, it boots off the hdd, because it thinks
it's cleverer than the user. It seems to have some test, and if
windows is in that state that it's gone through that chunk of the
install and has restarted, then it detects that and boots off HDD
regardless. I can see the logic in that, but i want to get to the CD
and start the setup again!

it doesn't matter waht the blue screen error is 'cos i know it's caused
by the bad cd. The prob is that i can't boot off a good win cd. it
keeps booting off the hdd and blue screening.
This shouldn't require a format!!

 

[bumtracks]

when you first start your computer, it probably says real quick to press F2
or something to access bios... go look at bios and and it probably has
settings to boot first from CD then floppy then hdd or some such stuff.

 

[T. Waters]

This article might help yo with your BIOS:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

 

[Richard Urban]

You are trying to boot from the CD to install Windows in VirtualPC? You have
to set VirtualPC to boot from the CD drive. Otherwise it tries to boot from
the virtual hard drive.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[q_q_anonymous]

ok, problem solved. It was booting off CD, hence disdplays the Win XP
message "press any key to boot from CD" But the reason why it then went
ahead and booted to HDD was because for some reason, the signals from
my keyboard weren't getting into the computer!! Thinking back, I
recall that it acted as if I hadn't hit a key at all. i.e. the message
stayed there as the Dots (....) accumulated - waiting for me to press
a key!!

So anything i wrote about the win xp cd booting and detecting half of
windows and booting off HDD is to be discarded!!
After booting off the WIn XP CD, it displays that message("press any
key to boot from CD" ) and it only boots off HDD if a key is not
pressed . this is to be expected.

 

[q_q_anonymous]

The error just recurred, and was solved by closing and reopening
virtual pc 2004. It's a virtual pc 2004 problem relating to keyboard
input when it says "perss any key to boot from D".
interestingly, even closing and reopening, doesn't solve the problem
that DEL isn't going to the BIOS.
To get around that problem, I started the windows xp 'on screen
keyboard' in accessibility in the start menu. It responded to that
immediately.

I have a kvm extender and a kvm switch. maybe that's part of the
problem. I can't be bothered to find out though. the accessibility
online keyboard is fine for when i need to press a key early in bootup.
i'll see if the problem extends beyond that to opening notepad within
win xp within virtual pc.

But it is a virtual pc keyboard input iossue worked around with the
online keyboard. If it's just on bootup, then that's a satisfactory
workaround. .