Cannot boot from CD, whats the deal here?

[bdub84]

Ok, I have booted from a CD numerous times. I go into the setup, set the first boot device as my cd drive, save and restart. It goes through post and then says "press any key to boot from cd". Well, I press keys and nothing happens. Then it loads up windows like usual. I have 2 keyboards hooked up and I hit keys on both of them when it prompts me to and I get nothing. I know board keyboards work as they both work to get me into setup when I restart/turn on my comp.

Anyone have any idea why it won't boot from the cd?

 

[Captain Pooka]

Well... if I told you to boot from a banana, and there were no bananas around.. you would go to the secondary - .... um.. your heart. Ok, bad analogy.

You say boot from CD, it finds nothing to boot from so it goes to your drive.
What are you trying to boot? Try another disk. If it works it's something wrong with that CD...

-Q

 

[bdub84]

Well, I DO have a banana, so I would boot from it..

I'm trying to boot from a windows XP CD. I've used it countless times and never had a problem.

The drive spins the CD like its going to start it, and I press the key and nothing happens. So I don't think its the drive. I don't think I have any other CDs that I could boot from.

It just makes me mad because I've done it 100 times on 10 different comps and now it won't work for whatever reason.

 

[Computer Head]

Does the message "Press any key to boot from CD" show up and you can't press that key, or does the message not come up at all? I'm kinda confused.

As far as keyboards, never have two connected at the same time because that causes a lot of conflict. Try using only one at a time. Also, if you are getting the message to boot from CD but can't push a button, you may be using a USB keyboard when you need to use a PS/2 keyboard. So make sure that the keyboard (only one) you are using has this connector.

 

[Cabbs]

You shouldn't have to use a PS/2 keyboard to get into the BIOS. I've used USB keyboards on several computers and they work just fine getting into the BIOS and formatting Windows.

 

[Computer Head]

You shouldn't have to use a PS/2 keyboard to get into the BIOS. I've used USB keyboards on several computers and they work just fine getting into the BIOS and formatting Windows.

I've had some older computers that required PS/2 keyboards over USB keyboards ... would even pull up an error during POST because there wasn't a PS/2 keyboard. I got two of them that are that way.

 

[Cabbs]

I see. Our computers are fairly modern.

 

[bdub84]

The "Press any key to boot from CD" message DOES come up. Its just that nothing happens when I press any key.

I have both a USB and a PS/2 keyboard hooked up.

 

[Computer Head]

Have you tried using just the PS/2 keyboard? Unhook the USB keyboard? As I said in my previous post, using two keyboards may be causing a conflict as both keyboards are using IRQ 1. Try with just a PS/2 keyboard and see if it works with that.

 

[bdub84]

Have you tried using just the PS/2 keyboard? Unhook the USB keyboard? As I said in my previous post, using two keyboards may be causing a conflict as both keyboards are using IRQ 1. Try with just a PS/2 keyboard and see if it works with that.

I missed that post for some reason. Thanks for the tip...If I'm not back in 10 minutes, I successfully got the CD to boot

Thanks to everyone for their input.