hi,

i hope it's ok that i also post my problem at other forums. just being forthright (upfront).

i recently had a computer, hp pavillion 510c, given to me that was the victim of "rootkit activity", but now the computer is clean. the OS on the hard drive is XP. the computer with xp works nicely. there doesn't seem to be any hardware problems. i can use it for hours and it works flawlessly. there's no dust in the computer. plenty of fans.
what i have planned for this computer is adding a second hard drive as slave and putting a different OS on it (the second hard drive) so that i can have a dual boot system, but i can't get the system to boot from CD. there are two cd decks, but neither will boot any cd. i've tried numerous boot and utility disks and i get the "OPERATING system not found" message. no number to go with the message.

the first thing that needs to be mentioned is the fact that in the bios>boot tab, the CD-rom has an exclamation point in front of it. i don't know how to remove the exclamtion point. obviously this is an eye-opener. a screenshot is included.
i've tried disconnecting the HDD (and the floppy) , nothing was connected but the master cd drive (the jumper on the cd-rom is on master, and it's on the last connector on the ribbon cable, and i've tried other cables). i've tried everything in the bios that i can think of, but i am in no way an expert (that's why i'm here).

the bios is phoenix core version 4.06

bios revision 3.05
12/04/01

the motherboard is a Mat,NO: 126708 LOMITA 011110
i have never heard of these motherboards, but it's all the reasonably identifiable info i can find.

i have never reset a bios back to DEFAULTS, so i haven't done it with this one. i have not flashed the bios either. it may need that, but i know that to be a risky endevour, so i won't look into this without guidance.

i have included a link that shows three screenshots.
one is the exclamation point that is probably causing the problem.
one is boot-time diagnostic and quickboot screen, and one is the main tab.

http://tinypic.com/4duk6dna

i am not in a hurry to get this computer working, and i have it completely disassembled, so there is nothing i am not willing (able) to try. i have all the time in the world.

thanks.

Hello,

Did you try setting the OPTICAL drive in the bios as the first boot device in the boot priority list? If not try that. Also there should be a boot menu option during the logo screen when you start the computer (most models but not all of them) it will tell you a key to press to access this menu. This is a quicker way of booting to a drive that is not top priority in the boot list. Mine is the escape key but yours may be different. I used to own an HP desktop and i know that the boot menu was accessed using the F12 key. If you press this key then it should give you a list of drives that you can boot from. Select the optical drive and see if that works.it works!

it's hard to say exactly what, if any, changes had any effect, but these are the things that i did between the moments that it wouldn't boot from the cd and when it did boot from cd.

i UNPLUGGED the power cord to the psu and pulled the cmos battery for about 15 minutes to reset defaults.

i disabled quick-boot mode. i don't know if this had any bearing on the solution. i would sure like to know specifically what disabling/enabling quick-boot mode does.

i set the correct time in bios>general tab and pressed f10 to save changes.


giardmi09,

the f12 key has a strange function with this computer. one time pressing it put up a screen (right after your suggestion) that said "key lock error" so i changed keyboards. it didn't fix the problem, however. and f12 has had no effect ever since (it was worth a shot though).
thanks for the reply.

No problem. I'm glad you were able to solve your issue.