Bootable XP - Gateway problem

Dr. Loon

Alright, I know there's a few Gateway lads on here, so you may be able to help, and I may be being stupid, but I'm a bit beered up so....
The problem - I want to fdisk, re-format my system and install XP. I've done this before no problems, reboot the system - boot from the XP cd, and drop out to a command prompt and do what I need to - then reinstall.

But this time, my system will NOT boot from any bootable cd!! I've reset the BIOS to all defaults, I've checked all settings are correct and I've even tried to boot from Gateways system CD... no joy!

Any ideas as to why this is happening all of a sudden?? Am I being really stupid? I don't think so but ye never know. Thanks in advance boyos!

PPC

You need to download the windows boot disks of the MS site.
Its about 5Mb and has 6 disks in it.

Its so damn annoying.

Dr. Loon

Yeah but I could boot from the cd before!!! I don't get why it won't boot anymore! Saruman, you're a Gateway head aren't ya? Any ideas?

snake_eyes

does it try to boot from the cd and then fail or does it not bother trying at all ?

if its doesnt bother trying to boot from the cd then you need to change the boot sequence in the bios. resetting the bios might be what messed that up. Boot sequence setting should read something like "cd-rom , floopy, HDD". After the reinstall you can set it back to "HDD, whatever, whatever".

Dr. Loon

I've tried different boot sequences in the BIOS, I've made sure there's no weird security settings in the BIOS also, then I reset the BIOS defaults. I've tried all of that.

I have a CDRW as the master, and a DVD drive as the slave. A mate was around with his hdd and we had to chop and change hardware, I don't know if it's been set back to the way it was previously. i.e - the DVD may have been master. So I'm gonna **** around with that and see. If anyone else has any ideas... fire away

snake_eyes

i dont think the boot sequence really has anything to do with which is the master or the slave.

Have you tried taking on of the cd roms out and maybe thats confusing it.

It would be a big help if u could post what actually happens when the boot sequence points to the cd first. does it spin up the cd ? does it read from it and give an error?

flamegrill

the boot sequence will only look at the master driver to boot. there fore if hes trying to boot from the dvd driver and its set to slave it wont work. just boot from what ever deive is set to master. id use the dvd rom as its faster for reading than the cd-rw. i have a gateway and i have no problems with this matter. its probably because u reset the bios and lost the setting to boot from cdrom.

Dr. Loon

Lads... like I said, it wasn't booting from either drive before I reset the BIOS, so it's nothing to do with the fact that I reset the BIOS.

When my config changed I think the DVD was the master and the CDRW the slave. It's the opposite way around now. I think I'll change that, it's worth a shot.

Neither drive actually even spins up on boot. So the system doesn't seem to even check if it should boot from the drives!

flamegrill

OK.

In the bios on the first menu -

goto - Boot Options - First Boot Device = ATAPI CDROM
Second Boot Device = IDE1

if thats set it should be working. just change the 2 deviecs around.

Dr. Loon

That's what it is set to, and it still doesn't work. I've tried every config in the BIOS with no joy...