[coyote64]

I want to re-install windows XP on a Dell Dimension 2400 and I'm having problems. The cd won't boot from the cd drive. I tried doing the following: clicking F12 and selecting the cd drive to try to boot. It doesn't work. I get a message it failed and options F1 retry and F2 to go to BIOS. I went into BIOS and set cd drive to be first in list. It doesn't work. What the system is doing is it keeps booting from the hard drive. I tried using F keys but I get the screen that shows booting from Safe Mode etc. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

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Hi coyote64, can you boot any CD? If not then I would say the CD drive is defective.

You can try any of the following bootable CDs:

• EBCD
• UBCD
• Puppy Linux

If any of them work then the drive is okay and your XP CD is defective. Try booting it in another computer to test.

[Ztruker]

Hi coyote64, can you boot any CD? If not then I would say the CD drive is defective.

You can try any of the following bootable CDs:

• EBCD
• UBCD
• Puppy Linux

If any of them work then the drive is okay and your XP CD is defective. Try booting it in another computer to test.

[coyote64]

I tried the windows XP re-install cd in another computer and it worked fine. So I swapped out the drive on the machine that I'm having problems, and I pressed the F12 key and selected the option to boot from the cd drive and it didn't work. The reason I want to do a re-install is because the system has repeatedly froze while in normal mode and I can't do anything in normal mode. I tried loading some utility software in Safe Mode, but like with AVG anti-virus it errors before completing. Why can't I get the cd drive to work? Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

[Ztruker]

Well, you verified the CD, swapped out the drive (new drive could also be bad unless you know for sure it's good), so that leaves the IDE cable connecting the CD drive to the mother board and the mother board itself.

Is the drive detected in BIOS Setup?

[coyote64]

Yes, it shows that the drive is detected in BIOS. I tried resetting the jumpers in the back of the device thinkin that they might not be set right, but no luck. Also, I cleared the CMOS .....not really sure if that would do anything.

[Ztruker]

You can swap the IDE cables between IDE0, where your hard drive is connected, and IDE1, where your CD is connected, see if that changes anything. If the system won't boot then that means the IDE cable itself is bad.