Specs: XP Home SP3
Award BIOS
2.8 gb Intel Celeron CPU
1 gb RAM
40 gb Quantum Fireball HDD
Yamaha CRW3200E CD-RW Recorder
Compaq DVD-ROM

IDE Primary      Master HDD
                        Slave   DVD
IDE Secondary Master CD
                        Slave    None

Original setup was DVD as secondary slave, I moved things trying to find a solution.

Trying to do a clean install of XP Home, I set BIOS for CD boot first but it will not happen. I get the "hit any key to boot from CD" during load up but no matter what key I hit nothing happens. You can watch it time out waiting and then it MOVES to the HDD. This happens even if I disable the HDD from the boot sequence.

The XP CD is a legitimate MS upgrade disk. I tried booting from it on my laptop and it WORKED no problem. I also tried an old Win98 SE upgrade CD that is supposed to be a boot disk and it won't work either (I did not try this in the laptop).

This leads me to think it is something with the CD player but it seems to be working fine in all other respects-plays music, games, data and photo CDs, loads programs ok, burns CDs ok.

I have also tried putting the CD in the DVD drive to see if somehow that is the CD boot. No joy.

Any ideas? 




 
kaigun,Try leaving the HDD on one unique ide cable (end connection).Put the Cd drive on another in dependant ide cable (set to master) and remove the dvd entirely (just for the test). Try that and see what happens. If there is no change replace the Cd-Rw with the DVD-rom (same physical setup and ensure it for the test is also set to master) and see if that GETS you working. Given your desire to do a clean install leave your bios boot order as you have it now for your tests. Report back with the results. Also ensure that your ide cable connection on your optical device is not reversed.truenorthThanks for the response.

Ok, I took the DVD off the primary IDE and disconnected its power too. Made sure the CD and HDD were both on the ends of their respective cables and that the cables were connected properly. Still no go. Same thing with the "press any key to boot from CD" message-I just watch it time out while I'm pressing keys.

Then I disconnected the CD and reconnected the DVD to the end of secondary IDE cable and reset the jumper to master. Same results.    Did you enter Setup at boot to change the boot order to the CDROM first ? ?Yes, and I know it took because it is LOOKING for a CD at boot.