Hardware DVD drive problem that's really weird?

[Fishaman P]

I just recently completed my first build. It booted up fine from both installer (used) hard drives. Then in the BIOS settings, I noticed it didn't recognize the DVD-RW/CD-R Combo drive I put in. After a quick flashback, I remembered I didn't plug the drive in.
I promptly removed the case side and plugged in the drive. It went in fine, and the BIOS sees it. But it can't boot from a known good CD. HELP!

 

[betaboy]

Check the boot order in the bios settings. Cd should come before HDD.

 

[Fishaman P]

Sorry, was rushed when I typed this.

1. It's a used IDE DVD-RW/CD-R Combo drive, set to Master on the same cable as a Slave 200GB HDD (which for some reason is recognized as 20GB, but that's fine, it's just Ubuntu)

2. It was a little dirty on the outside when I got it.

3. The computer recognizes the brand and model.

4. The boot order is set to DVD, HDD1, HDD2, USB

5. Currently no internet access, but I can get that.

6. A copy of WinXP on each HDD, but neither wants to boot. One of them gets to a VERY faint WinXP loading logo, but then the computer reboots right away. I think it has something to do with my BIOS setting for "Automatic Reboot On Error".

7. I COULD get another DVD drive, but I don't want to.

8. It seems like it's spinning the BOOTABLE disc I put in, but the computer seems like it tries to load it for a minute, then moves on to the next item in the boot sequence.

 

[aiRWaLKRe]

If it was dirty you might try a lens cleaner on it. Or if the bootable disk is a burned one the drive might not like that media. That the only thing about cd/dvd drives they don't all like the same media, there is no standard for recordable media thus drives don't like every brand.

 

[Fishaman P]

OK. Problem solved. It didn't like the CD-RW I was using. Another CD-R worked fine.