[geno368]

I am trying to install Windows 7 on an old dimension 4600 running XP with 2gb ram.  It has a cd drive and a dvd which shows up in bios as primary and slave respectively. I cannot get the dvd to boot my Windows dvd.  The bios version is A03...I installed a usb dvd external drive and usb boot is not an option in bios.  What should I do?

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Try swapping the cables so the DVD is primary. See if shows up as a boot choice then? If so, press F12 at boot time to bring up the one time boot menu and choose it from there.

 

Edit: The jumpers on the optical drives are normally plugged for Cable Select, what are yours set to? If Master/Slave then reverse them at the same time you swap the cables.

[Ztruker]

Try swapping the cables so the DVD is primary. See if shows up as a boot choice then? If so, press F12 at boot time to bring up the one time boot menu and choose it from there.

 

Edit: The jumpers on the optical drives are normally plugged for Cable Select, what are yours set to? If Master/Slave then reverse them at the same time you swap the cables.

[geno368]

Thanks for the reply...I have removed the cd and placed the end of that ribbon cable to the dvd.   It shows up in bios as secondary master drive.  When I boot to cd drive(it doesn't show dvd rw as a boot device. I get this error: Secondary drive 1 not found. I rebooted back in xp and I put in another dvd and in windows explorer it shows the dvd drive but no content. I put a music cd in the dvd drive and it works. I also uninstalled the dvd drive in device manager and it re-installed it when booting again.

[Ztruker]

Did you check the jumpers on the DVD to see if it's plugged for Cable Select, Master or Slave? Should be Cable Select or Master if it's on on the end connector.