[Sokol]

Hello,
I've ran into some issues where I'd like to do a repair install of Xp. However, the issue I'm running into is that I'm having trouble booting from my CD. I've gone into my bios and looked in the boot order, and I'm not able to select the cd drive as one of the options. I'm trying to trouble shoot that with Asus. I can boot into windows normally, however. So I can access the cd from my computer. But as expected, it says that I cannot install windows, because I have a newer version on my machine. Is there a way to do the repair install without booting from the cd? Thanks for your help.

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Howszit?

Sorry to hear that your CD can't be found to boot from(?) A few questions 1st...

You say its an ASUS. Is it a notebook or tower? I did have a case recently where the CD was actually turned off in CMOS and would not appear until it was activated, (that was a Toshiba product, but maybe the same applies for ASUS notebooks)?

ASUS notebooks also have a hidden partition, if memory serves (and the older you get the less you get served, but... ), there maybe a key that will allow you to restore the the system to it was when it was first opened out of its box, if it was a notebook...

Hope this helps...

[Mark D]

Howszit?

Sorry to hear that your CD can't be found to boot from(?) A few questions 1st...

You say its an ASUS. Is it a notebook or tower? I did have a case recently where the CD was actually turned off in CMOS and would not appear until it was activated, (that was a Toshiba product, but maybe the same applies for ASUS notebooks)?

ASUS notebooks also have a hidden partition, if memory serves (and the older you get the less you get served, but... ), there maybe a key that will allow you to restore the the system to it was when it was first opened out of its box, if it was a notebook...

Hope this helps...

[Sokol]

Thanks for the reply. This is a tower that I managed to put together back in the day. So, unfortunately, it wasn't out of the box, but more than likely put together somewhat wrong by me. haha. So I'm not sure that I can get it to boot from the disk. Maybe I need to change the connection of the drives physically. Which I'm hoping I can avoid if at all possible (Becaues I'm not entirely sure how I woul dneed to change them anyways).

[Mark D]

How old is your tower and what make is the CD or DVD drive? Is it on the same ribbon cable as the hard drive? Pressing the F12 key on some systems will bring up a boot choice menu, (before the WinXP splash screen appears). Have you tried that?

[123Runner]

May I ask why you are trying to do a repair install?
What issues are you having?

I have both my CD's coming off my 2nd ide connector on the board. I would think that the bios would see the CD no matter what cable it was on.

When you say Asus, I assume the board. Do you have the manual for the board?
If not, do you know the model so we can look it up?

You should look in the bios to see if it is being detected.

[Sokol]

Ultimately, I had to open up my tower and rearrange the connections to get it to boot from the CD. I had to connect the cd on the same ribbon cable as the hard drive. What a pain. Maybe it's something with the BIOS.

[Mark D]

More likely a problem with the second IDE channel or even the ribbon cable itself. It's odd that Windows could see the CD drive though your system could not boot from it..

[Sokol]

Yeah, that's what I thought too.