Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

[userx]

Heylow. I recently purchased a new computer and am making my old comp into a hand me down for my Girlfriend. (enough with the useless info)

I need to put windows on the computer so that she can more easily use the comp for uni access and the like. I realise this is a weird thing to be posting on a linux forum.

I have tried just about everything I can think of to make the damn thing boot from the cd like it is supposed to but for some reason the silly computer seems to have decided for itself that it doesn't want to run windows. (I checked BIOS for any failed settings but they seem to all be in order. and the computer recognized an Ubuntu boot disk it just refuses to see the windows disk)

If anyone could help me out I would appreciate it.

Computer is a compaq evo n800v it has ubuntu 5.9 ( I think) and kubuntu 5.10 (i'm fairly certain on that one) however I can't imagine any of that information would make any difference to how I can make my computer do what I want it to.

This is really starting to make me angry so please help me lower my blood pressure and give me the answers I need

cheers

[Pizzarth]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

um, if you havent tried this already you press F12 during the first boot, where it usually shows the vendor such as dell or hp and then optioin 4 should be to boot from the cd. I didn't need to mess with BIOS at all

[nilsA]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

If everything fails - fdisk should be on the Windows CD. Run it to remove all partitions, reboot, and there should be nothing but the CD to boot from.

[userx]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

Tried f12 (forgot which F it was so ended up starting up the comp 12 times) but ya its like the computer no longer wants anything to do with any windows disk. F12 results in nothing happening on boot, I can't view the disk inside of kubuntu (or ubuntu) this entire process is just slowly driving me nuts.

As it will no doubt be an incredibly simple thing to do and I'm just missing some small step or something, I'm not too worried about it but I would like to be able to put windows back on that computer. oh well lets see what happens.

Oh and as I think I said before I can't imagine it is a problem with my cd reader as it has booted from the ubuntu install disk. I also can't imagine it is a problem with the windows disk as this one came straight out of a sealed packet and I've tried using 3 others already.

[poohbear]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

A quick question.
What version of windows?

[Gutti]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

You need to clear out the mbr. Download some Linux Live CD and clear the MBR with

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

in terminal as root. Then restart with the Windows cd in.
Look @ http://linuxgazette.net/issue63/okopnik.html

[javierrivera]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

If the windows CD doesn't even start to boot, but a Linux LiveCD does, the most likely problem (I'll bet a couple of euros) is a faulty windows disk. Did you try to boot from that disk in another system?.

Javier.

[userx]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

Thank you very much gutti, I will try that as soon as I get home.

I'm sure alot of new users don't enjoy all the work that goes into doing the simpliest* thing in linux, but I find it makes it a wee bit of an adventure... of course sometimes I don't feel like adventuring I just feel like loading something on from CD! hehe (ack I'm ranting)

My university is having a linux install day this weekend where they will linux up your computer with all the needed drivers and things. sorry still ranting... good day

[javierrivera]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

I really fail to understand why a Windows CD that is unable to boot could be a Linux problem.

Javier.

[userx]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

Yes I would completly agree with you... except it wasn't one windows cd that was failing to boot... it was four. and as I said I was able to boot from a linux live cd and even install a second version of linux from booting from a linux cd. So considering that the computer used to be able to boot from a windows cd, is still able to boot from a cd (just not a windows one) to me implies that something happened along the way that has stopped my computer being able to do formentioned action of booting from a windows cd. Maybe its not a linux problem but I was fairly sure linux would have a solution... how ever weird that may be.

[javierrivera]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

Yes I would completly agree with you... except it wasn't one windows cd that was failing to boot... it was four.

Original Windows CD?, or maybe vendor restore cd?

Have you tried to boot those CDs on another machine?

Boot from CD happens before OS takes control of a computer. AFAIK it can only be a BIOS or CD problem. But if it boots a Linux CD... well, it's really strange.

Javier.

[userx]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

I know I'm confused by the entire thing as well... atleast 2 of them were vendor cds (one of which I was sure was from the laptop that I was trying to install it on)

I haven't done the instructions the last person recommended yet, but hopefully that works... otherwise I'm just going to have to teach my gf how to use linux... or buy ANOTHER laptop grrrr.

P.S I am thoroughly embarrassed posting this thread on this forum... its just open source users are often the most friendly and helpful people around when it comes to computers anyway... well unless they are mean anti microsoft terrorists that is... they can sometimes be mean.

[nilsA]

Re: Help please. My computer won't boot from CD!

Did you check - not just assume - that the BIOS is set to boot from CD as the first option?

If it is, try changing to CD as the second boot order. The reason this may work (and I stress the may part) is, Linux is pretty stubborn when it comes to the boot order, so if there is something starting up the CD involving Linux, then that may not work, and hopefully the BIOS will skip to option #2.

Another option is - take the HD out of the PC, put it either in a usb enclosure or use an adapter to connect to a desktop PC; format, or better, fdisk and then format as fat 32 - put the HD back.