What is wrong with WindowsXP CD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marshall
  • Start date Start date
M

Marshall

Every bootable CD (from another OS or utility disk, etc) I place in my
CD drive WORKS FINE.

I have two genuine XP pro disks and both of them produce the same
result. The system scans the CD drive and then tells me to hit any to
continue booting from the CD.

Only the WindowsXP disks produce that prompt AND nothing happens when I
do as instructed. No key struck produces a response.

I'm going to keep fiddling around with boot order arrangement in the
BIOS setup and probing around the Knowledge Base but this is damn
bizarre considering that the problem ONLY happens with XP...


Must be a feature...
 
Marshall said:
Every bootable CD (from another OS or utility disk, etc) I place in
my CD drive WORKS FINE.

I have two genuine XP pro disks and both of them produce the same
result. The system scans the CD drive and then tells me to hit any
to continue booting from the CD.

Only the WindowsXP disks produce that prompt AND nothing happens
when I do as instructed. No key struck produces a response.

I'm going to keep fiddling around with boot order arrangement in the
BIOS setup and probing around the Knowledge Base but this is damn
bizarre considering that the problem ONLY happens with XP...


Must be a feature...
Click to expand...

Type of keyboard?
Any KVM involved?
BIOS setup for Legacy USB devices?
 
Hello Marshall,

Are you sure that the keystroke is registered ? Some keyboards, specially
wireless/bluetooth keyboards do not function properly outside of Windows.
Make sure that you keyboard works before actually booting into Windows XP.
Alternatively, you can plug in another keyboard and try hitting a key to
ensure that your machine actually boots up from the Windows XP CD.

--
Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
Microsoft Certified Professional
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
http://www.mvps.org

Folder customizations
http://www.anando.org/folder
 
Shenan said:
Type of keyboard?
Any KVM involved?
BIOS setup for Legacy USB devices?
Click to expand...

Hardwired keyboard, no KVM. I will redo BIOS setup to not support USB
devices as a test.

Thank you
 
Anando said:
Hello Marshall,

Are you sure that the keystroke is registered ? Some keyboards, specially
wireless/bluetooth keyboards do not function properly outside of Windows.
Make sure that you keyboard works before actually booting into Windows XP.
Alternatively, you can plug in another keyboard and try hitting a key to
ensure that your machine actually boots up from the Windows XP CD.
Click to expand...

Hardwired keyboard, works fine otherwise outside of XP environment.

Thanks
 
Marshall said:
Hardwired keyboard, no KVM. I will redo BIOS setup to not support USB
devices as a test.

Thank you
Click to expand...

Follow up:

OK, here is the deal. When I first tried this I had in the BIOS setup
intentionally disabled my RAID array as I had planed to over write it
with a dual boot scheme. So effectively in that state there is no OS to
be seen as the striped array was made no longer accessible. Only raw
unformatted drives as far as any OS should be concerned.

That was the first step leading to the confusion.

When XP boots from the CD it apparently must in some way query the BIOS
for the presence of a bootable XP partition. If it finds one and you
FAIL to strike any key during a few second window of opportunity, it
will automatically bypass itself (the CD..) and boot the HDD instead.

This is what I consider being user second guessed by Microsoft
engineers. I had the WindowsXP CD in the drive intentionally with the
expectation to boot from it.

By disabling the array and failing to strike any key during the CD boot
sequence in that few second window, it locks the user out from doing
anything (unless you reboot and catch the key strike/prompt during that
few second window). I am guessing that this is because it still sees the
MBR or some sort of boot flag but yet is not able to access the now
nonexistent array.

(The exact method of how this happens might be slightly off as I did not
test a few other permutations but that is the essence of the confusion.)

I am done with this problem for now but as a boot design scheme I
dislike being second guessed and having my time wasted.

Thanks for the fast replies and attempts to help. Those are always
sincerely appreciated.

Marshall
 
When XP boots from the CD it apparently must in some way query the BIOS
When you boot from the Windows XP setup CD, you are not actually booting
into XP, you are just booting into the Windows XP Setup program. The boot
device priority is actually maintained in the CMOS chip on the motherboard
and this information is read by the BIOS during the bootup process and code
control is transferred accordingly. The bootloader on the Windows XP CD is
designed to prompt the user since a CD might be accidentally left into the
CD drive and on a subsequent reboot, the user should have a choice to boot
into the CD drive or not.

I am *guessing* that if there are no active partitions on the fixed boot
device, the CD might directly boot into the setup program without prompting.
Not sure though.

--
Anando
Microsoft MVP- Windows Shell/User
Microsoft Certified Professional
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
http://www.mvps.org

Folder customizations
http://www.anando.org/folder
 
No problems at all with my CD.

When you are booting from the CD you need to ensure the first boot
device is the CD and not HDD0, infact when I am installing I disable
all but the 1st boot device, during the installation the computer
reboots and it is at this stage that I switch the first boot device
to HDD.

An easier way is to make CD the 1st boot device and the HDD 2nd boot
device when you reach the rebooting stage you simply remove the disc
and let the computer boot from the 2nd device which is the hard
drive, since the CD had been removed.

Once windows has been installed you only need to boot from that drive,
the others can remain disabled since from now on the 1st boot device
will always be the hard drive as no other boot device will be
required.

There is the chance that the CD is not reading the disc since you said
the system is scanning the drive asks you
to hit any key to continue. This could
sound like the CD drive is not reading the disc, maybe because of a
defective optical block due to dust build up on the lens or the
actual laser itself.

Maybe checking the CD drive by swapping 'may' prove fruitful.

Davy
 
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