Hardware Analysis Community Forums http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/ 2008-09-06T03:21:15-05:00 http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/ http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/halogo.gif text/html 2008-04-24T02:07:08-05:00 john albrich http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534353 jay sharpe said: <div class="quote">...i'll smack anyone who says to set bios to boot from cd as first priority, obvious...</div><br /> <br /> Glad you solved the problem, cause I don't think I'd like to try helping someone who's gonna smack me around because I tried to help him. text/html 2008-04-24T00:25:00-05:00 jay sharpe http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534347 i thank guys like you for being around during such aggravating times in life, grateful<br /> <br /> apparently there was some mix up with the &quot;aux&quot; port and &quot;cd in&quot; port connecting the sound card to the cd-rw's<br /> <br /> i installed a cd-rw and 52x cd drive a couple years ago replacing the cdrw and dvd player that was originally in it and for some reason the wires plugged into the soundcard were mixed up and i never knew cause everything worked fine until i needed to boot from a cd( a friend set this up with me who knew more). I tried using the atapi cd-rw without any other disc drives and took the cable out of my sound card &quot;cd in&quot; jack and put it in the &quot;aux&quot; jack and it all worked fine upon restart. I started to think something was up when i was told the monitor didnt respond to the pc being turned on<br /> <br /> in my defense for being an idiot i will say i have had faulty cd drives of countless tweaking to find out they were bad or burned out or old<br /> <br /> thnx again, this is why i always try to wait til the internet is my last resort before bugging people for solutions like they got nothing better to do, cause 95% of the time with computers it is something simple and somthing you probably screwed up<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> text/html 2008-04-23T22:52:16-05:00 angryhippy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534338 The fact that the ROM is seen by the BIOS isn't necessarily indicative of it working. My kids system got real slow and I went over there to check it. After ruling out Viruses and such, I discovered that there was a bad wire on the cable and the HD would only run in PIO mode not UDMA. Also if the BIOS got trashed somehow, you'd still need a floppy drive to reflash it, as opposed to just resetting it. text/html 2008-04-23T22:36:10-05:00 jay sharpe http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534335 -havent tried using just the atapi cd-rw plugged in only but i did do it alone with the ARMD cdrw and i think that it may be incompatable with my bios cause its older maybe<br /> -theres actually 2 hd's on the pc, one secondary with music saved in xp format from b4 reformat but not reformatted, to see if i can keep it<br /> -the other hd is the master and i put xp on it in the dimension 3800 not realizing it wasnt gonna work when plugged in to the 4100<br /> -so im tryin to boot from the cd to reformat the master hd again or to use the repair tool to change the driver stuff etc so i dont have to reformat again<br /> very simple, very wierd<br /> <br /> the floppy drive died years ago and has been removed<br /> <br /> ill try to have someone try it with only the atapi cdrw b4 i leave<br /> <br /> only thing i can thinkk of at this point is a break in the ribbon cable but bios recognizes the drive text/html 2008-04-23T21:24:29-05:00 angryhippy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534333 Um...did you set the BIOS to boot from CD? j/k<br /> <br /> You need to try with just one or the other CDROM installed. Also try another cable or try hooking the ROM with the hard drive.<br /> <br /> Edit: Wait, are you trying to install windows on the new system, or are you trying to get the OS installed on the old system to boot on the new one, cause that won't work. The 4100 came with a floppy. Is it not working or has it been removed? text/html 2008-04-23T21:14:36-05:00 jay sharpe http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#534331 2001 <a target="_blank" href="/action/r/http://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> Dimesnion 4100 1ghz oh yeah<br /> <br /> Im about to toss this pc also, I've done many things and still cannot boot from a cd of any sort. I had a 500mhz dimension <a target="_blank" href="/action/r/http://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> 3800 or 4000, dont remember, a couple days ago and my XP pro cd booted fine installing windows to the newly reformatted HD. I took that HD and put it in my <a target="_blank" href="/action/r/http://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> 4100 dimension because i am an idiot and thought the newly installed windows would work without me having to figure out why i cant boot from a cd to do it. I figured i'd just run repair after booting from the windows cd to fix the issues between the two dells with the windows<br /> <br /> long story short.....I put 2 cd-rw's into the <a target="_blank" href="/action/r/http://www.dell.com/">Dell</a> dimension 4100, one Atapi, one ARMD -set them as cable select jumpered, with atapi cdrw as Master or cd1 and ARMD cd-rw as slave or cd2 on the ribbon,(tried once as jumpered master and other slave appropriately, no luck) and still cannot boot from my XP cd to get windows on my HD. Before reformatting it would bi-pass my setting to boot from cd and just go right into windows. CD booted fine 5 other reformats on the same pc i've done.<br /> <br /> my pc error lights lead me to believe there is a PCI Bus error with ACD yellow and B green.<br /> pc just does a regular boot sequence, recognizes the HD and 2 CD-RW's but does not go the next screen of &quot;hit enter to boot from cd&quot;<br /> <br /> reset configs in bios<br /> turned plug and play os on and off in bios<br /> xp disc is fine<br /> i have no floppy disk drives<br /> i have no more cd rom drives avail<br /> all cables are connected<br /> windows xp previously used the cd-rw drives fine before reformat<br /> Atapi cd-rw booted cd fine on dimension 3800 500mhz<br /> i have no home internet w/o this pc<br /> i'll smack anyone who says to set bios to boot from cd as first priority, obvious<br /> <br /> bios boot options for cd's are Atapi CD-ROM or &quot;Other ROM&quot;<br /> <br /> please help, this doesnt make anysense and i dunno what pci bus failure means, text/html 2007-08-20T15:58:35-05:00 FordGT90Concept http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506204 I've done it through MS-DOS so many times I've lost count. Of course that assumes that the hard drive is OK (successfully FDisks) and the CD-ROM can read without problems. text/html 2007-08-20T15:51:07-05:00 angryhippy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506200 FordGT90Concept said: <div class="quote">Eh? You only need one disk to boot into MS-DOS. All you really need. <img src="http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/smilies/smile4.gif" width="14" height="14" border="0" alt=";)" title=";)"></div>Eh? You can boot into MS-DOS all you want. But if the CD won't install the setup files, you can assign all the drivers / letters to the CDROM. It's not gonna work.<br /> text/html 2007-08-20T13:54:20-05:00 FordGT90Concept http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506178 Eh? You only need one disk to boot into MS-DOS. All you really need. <img src="http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/smilies/smile4.gif" width="14" height="14" border="0" alt=";)" title=";)"> text/html 2007-08-20T07:57:45-05:00 angryhippy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506141 There are 6 different sets of the boot disks! XP Home, Home SP1, Home SP2. Pro, Pro SP1 Pro SP2. You need to look at your disk and figure which one it is. Then download the 6 floppys for that OS. It won't work if you have the wrong set. That will install the files needed to do the installation plus drivers for the CD. If it still won't install then your CD is trash or your CDROM is bad. Check the CD for dirt. If you did a partial then zero fill the drive again before starting over. You really shouldn't need the floppys unless the board is really old.<br /> <a class="ext" href="/action/r/http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310994</a> text/html 2007-08-20T03:27:15-05:00 FordGT90Concept http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506133 Create a bootable floppy with the Oak Technologies driver for CDROM drives or add the Oak technologies driver yourself. Help on how to do this may be found here:<br /> <a class="ext" href="/action/r/http://www.computerhope.com/boot.htm" target="_blank">http://www.computerhope.com/boot.htm</a><br /> <br /> Restart the computer and boot from the floppy. Oak will assign appropriate drive letters to each optical drive found (the next letter(s) available after B). Simply type, <b>&lt;letter&gt;:\setup.exe</b> (replacing &lt;letter&gt; with the appropriate letter) to start the install process. For instance, type &quot;D:\setup.exe&quot; if the drive letter is D and hit enter. text/html 2007-08-20T02:11:13-05:00 Josh Fay http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#506120 I'm having the same problem, but with XP, and I've tried absolutely everything that has been suggested, but I'm still not able to boot from the disk drive. Anything else short of chucking it out the window? text/html 2005-03-21T22:30:04-05:00 Anne Purdy http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#257082 Hi there,I had exactly the same problems as Michael, and after much searching found your site :o). I tried all options and the last one was to disable all other boots, leaving cdrom as the only alternative. For some reason this didnt work either saying it was an invalid drive. This got my brain cells working i can tell you (all two of them!!) I also have a DVD drive and as the last resort inserted my disc there and hey presto! it is now, as we speak, installing XP. <br /> Hope this works the same for michael, or anyone else with the same problem.<br /> Thanks for all your help<br /> Hugs text/html 2005-03-13T16:17:57-05:00 kip winter http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#254130 The thing is tired right? I did not notice if the question was asked... Could the cdrom drive have expired???<br /> I like the suggestions about getting a 98 restore / boot material onto floppy's and see what that does fdisk it ect ect. You are a gentleman for helping your elder's... good luck text/html 2005-03-10T23:13:09-05:00 Yanni Sfetkos http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/40406/?l=1#253161 Did you change the boot sequence from the BIOS ? <img src="http://media.hardwareanalysis.com/smilies/smile5.gif" width="14" height="14" border="0" alt=":P" title=":P"><br /> <br /> dont forget that old BIOSes have different boot sequence menu