Dell Dimension 8100 can't boot from CD?

This unit's problem was it stopped going to the net and not allowing you access to the control panel, the owner told me that he had a heavy virus infection which is why I told him to reload the OS since he doesn't need to have anything saved so I need to get this to boot from the OS cd.

I then tried to reload the XP Pro but it won't boot from any of the 2 cd-roms and the roms are recognised in the BIOS, now all of a sudden a BSOD showed up with error 0x00000019, how can I get to boot the OS cd please?

 

well, I am baffled. I tried to boot from one of the unit's 2 drives using an xp and a windows 2k cd, when I place those cd's in, I will see the regular

"Press any key to boot from cd.."

when I press a key it would then go straight to windows but when I use my knoppix cd, it would boot the knoppix OS fine, then I replaced the cd-rom with one of mine and the exact same deal, this suggests to me it's that it's not the rom that is the issue, am I correct? If so then it can't be the xp cd either since the win2k cd is doing the same? I tried the XP cd in another pc and it boots fine so what can be the issue here?

 

Are you using a USB keyboard? If so try a PS/2 keyboard. I'm thinking the keyboard isn't being recognized so it is not registering the "any key". Knoppix probably does not have the command to wait for key press before booting.

 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! It was exactly as you put it!

 

You're welcome.

Some BIOS have no problem with USB keyboards others won't recognize them and they don't become active until Windows loads the drivers. Windows installation CD doesn't recognize them unless BIOS does.