Unable to boot from DVD drive

lokkers · 20 Jan 2009 at 21:18

Bit of a weird problem.

I have an oldish machine that I'm using as a fileserver. It'll happily boot from the CD-ROM, but refuses to boot from an IDE DVD-RW drive. It's found in the bios, and also found in Windows (and is able to read from it etc). The boot order settings are correct (it does seem to try and read from the device - the green light flashes). I've tried both DVDs and CDs, and they all work in the same drive in my main machine.

I've had a look in the bios for any settings, but nothing stands out (and to reiterate, the bios seems to see the drive fine).

I'm at a loss as to why the damn fileserver refuses too boot from it, when my main machine will! :rolleyes:

ChrisLX200 · 20 Jan 2009 at 22:05

Have you tried it as Master on IDE 1?

lokkers · 20 Jan 2009 at 22:06

It's master on IDE 2, but I haven't tried it on one.

Gimme 5 minutes and I'll report back!

EDIT: Nope!

ChrisLX200 · 20 Jan 2009 at 22:35

Sounds more like a faulty bootable DVD to me - have you tried other copies?

Kennysevenfold · 20 Jan 2009 at 23:05

pop the jumper onto cable select and have only the 1 drive in ( the one you want to boot from )

any luck.?

lokkers · 21 Jan 2009 at 06:44

it isn't the media, as I've tried several DVDs/CDs, and they work in the same drive on a different machine. The particular DVD (Home Server) works in other drives.

If unplug all other devices except the DVD drive, I get the normal unable to boot message. It's showing in the bios as master 1.

ChrisLX200 · 21 Jan 2009 at 08:41

Strange. Yet it will boot from a CD ROM disk inserted into the DVD drive, but not a DVD disk. Maybe a BIOS thing, is there an update available for that board (whatever it is!)

lokkers · 21 Jan 2009 at 08:55

ChrisLX200 said:
Strange. Yet it will boot from a CD ROM disk inserted into the DVD drive, but not a DVD disk. Maybe a BIOS thing, is there an update available for that board (whatever it is!)

No it won't boot from a cd in the DVD drive, but it will boot from a cd in a different cd-rom. I need to check for a bios update, although iirc it's on the latest. With any luck I'll break it and give myself an excuse to buy a new cheap machine

lokkers · 23 Jan 2009 at 06:40

I've updated the bios to the latest version, but still no joy with it

leezer3 · 23 Jan 2009 at 10:26

This isn't using a funny IDE chipset is it?
I've had all sorts of ridiculous problems with non-standard IDE chipsets & booting DVDs.

-Leezer-

lokkers · 23 Jan 2009 at 13:40

leezer3 said:
This isn't using a funny IDE chipset is it?
I've had all sorts of ridiculous problems with non-standard IDE chipsets & booting DVDs.

-Leezer-

What the motherboard? It's an Intel D845 chipset, so presumably it's pretty standard :confused:

In desperation I have also tried to install WHS from a USB stick, and whilst this works on my desktop and laptop it just errors on the fileserver (soemthing about \boot\BCD). I'm this close to chucking it out and buying a cheap Shuttle!