DVD/CD Drives & Win XP Disk

so both my dvd and cd drives work fine.. except for when i put my win xp cd in, it wont auto run, and the pc wont boot from the drive (s)... i can browse/explore the cd's just fine..

 

is your disk ok (not too scratched up)? can you right click your drive (that the cd is in), and run it from there? have you check or changed your boot order in your bios to boot from the cd/dvd drive 1st, then boot from your h/d? what all have you tried? have you tried both drives? - sos

 

i went into the bios and changed all the start-up disks options to dvd/cd... and my pc still boots off the C drive.

 

You saved the bios changes upon exiting? (I'm not trying to be a smarta$$ here, but I've seen posts/people who just exited not realizing they had to confirm/save.)

Have you tried any other bootable CD's?

 

LOL.. good thing you put in the part about being a smart a$$... yes i saved the changes.. I have heard that its a vista issue- they vista wont let you down grade.. when i put in my xp disk the option to install xp is greyed out but other options-like exploring the cd works fine. i have read that i need to delete my vista partition? and then do a clean install of xp.. is it possible to delete a partion when it is on the c drive, and i cant boot from a cd?

 

Also, you have an option that appears when your system is Posting (before you see the Windows load screen) to "Press and key to boot from CD........." Do you see this option while your system is posting?

There is also this utility you can run that will fix the Autorun feature of XP (lol...it does break - it's Windows):

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...B6-E8FA-45C4-A171-1B389CFACDAD&displaylang=en

 

If you're considering dumping Vista and installing XP, there's many posts around on different forums (including MG) about people not finding XP drivers for "factory-loaded" Vista machines. Most notably the NIC and Sound drivers. Check for XP drivers for your machines hardware.

Some manufacturers do provide the means to do this, but most don't.

Dual booting might be an option, if, you can get around the MS dictum of installing an older O/S first, then the newer O/S.

 

true but my pc is an older model and not a vista pc...

 

way ahead of you my friend.. i have all boot options pointing to dvd/cd.. and it still boots off the c drive..

 

ok, i'm kinda confused. are you trying to totally remove all the vista stuff and go back to xp? if you want to totally wipe out your h/d, then here's a link. g/l, sos

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html <-- Darik's Boot and Nuke 2007-04-29 Beta - this will create an iso file, use your software (ie - nero) to burn the iso file to disk

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/dban/dban-1.0.7_i386.exe?download <-- floppy disks and USB flash drives

 

No no no... sorry. I have an XP machine running Vista...my xp machine wont let me boot using my xp disk.

 

i want vista off my pc. but cant do that unless i wipe out the drive.

 

No no no... sorry. I have an XP machine running Vista...my xp machine wont let me boot using my xp disk.

i want vista off my pc. but cant do that unless i wipe out the drive.

i have all boot options pointing to dvd/cd.. and it still boots off the c drive..

It seems strange that Vista would "over-ride" hardware parameters at the machine level. At the machine level, Vista isn't loaded yet. If you have the bios set to boot from the CD first, then it should.

Does your XP CD boot in another machine? (Scratches etc may be preventing the CD from finding the CD boot files.)

 

Before you wipe the drive, be sure you can get XP drivers for your PC. Many PCs with Vista pre-loaded do NOT have drivers for Windows XP, and you'd end up not having full use of all your devices. So check for the availability of XP drivers BEFORE you wipe the drive! If you don't, you may end up right back here at Major Geeks, but this time you'll be camped in the driver forum. That forum is full of people who hated Vista, wiped it, installed XP, and now have no drivers.....