I'm about to throw my computer out the window

[Picchioni]

Ok, time to reformat my computer right.  Windows has definetly [FILTER]crap[/FILTER] it self.  I go to reformat and guess what my Windows cd won't boot!  I have all of the settings in my bios set correctly to have the CD boot.  I even disable my hard drive so it will only boot off the CD to see what happens and it just says boot failed and it stops dead in its tracks.

Some how windows is installing as we speak but I have no clue how.  But I know for a fact that it didn't reformat my Hard Drive it just deleted the windows and system folder and is starting from scratch and whats the point in that.

& of course none of A drive disks that I have work so that's a lost cause there too.  & even if it did work what happens after the HD is formated and I still can't boot off the disk.

Anyone got the ideas because my 16mb sludge hammer is looking like better and better by the minute

Thx
 

[neb1211]

Perhaps your cd is damaged or something...

[JsutTechy]

You have a 16mb sledge hammer?

[acemaverick1381]

I'm pretty sure he meant 16lb hammer. He's so pissed off at his computer right now, I don' think he can see what he is typing.

Anyway, has that computer ever given you issues booting off of a cd before with like SLAX or KNOPPIX?

[Picchioni]

No thats the thing, i've been able to use knoppix in the past and boot off my CD.  I just did a reformat in Feb and everything worked fine.

I tired even throwing in my old 98 disk to see what happened and it didn't work.

I thought maybe SP2 had something to do with it, so I deleted SP2 but that didn't fix it.

Yes it is a 16lb sludge hammer.  It was pushing midnight and I was tired when I wrote my post.

 I still have my knoppix disk ill throw that in now and see what happens.

[Picchioni]

Nope knoppix didn't work either

back to square 1

[acemaverick1381]

CD drive or BIOS got raped in the night by a masked criminal maybe? Take them to counseling, you might find your answer there. It will probably turn out that the reason its acting so weirdly is because the CD drive hates its mother or something like that.

[Picchioni]

Yeah, I'm calling intel tonight to tell them I want either a RMA or a fix.  But I have 3 CD ROM drives and none of them will boot.  So my guess was the bios too.

[Picchioni]

I'm in business again

[neb1211]

What ended up being the problem?

[Picchioni]

Well it's still not fixed really,  I had to throw my Dad's HD in it that has 98se so I could boot onto a HD because my CD wouldn't.  So XP installs fine on my HD, now when I go to pull my Dad's HD out of my system it won't boot.

I've tried editing the boot.ini file in my xp system to not show the 98se HD, I went into Fdisk and made my XP HD the active partition.  Nothing works.  So I might just end up taking it in.

[neb1211]

Have you tried replacing the IDE cable?  If that doesn't work would it be possible to try and replace the CD drive?  There might also be a bad piece of hardware such as a modem, nic, or something else causing a problem.  Try removing any unnecessary hardware from the computer and disconnect all unnecessary IDE devices.  Make sure you also disconnect the power supply from the unnecessary hardware.

[acemaverick1381]

Also, are both the harddrives trying to be master, or do you have one of them master and the other slave? That happened to me when I mas messing  around with one of my older computers, and it just turned out that I didn't change the pin on my other harddrive.

[Picchioni]

I have one set to master and one set to slave.  So I think that rules that out.  I haven't tried switching out IDE cables yet.  Actually i'm getting round cables for xmas so ill do that then.  & i've got 6 CD Drives total around my house and none of them will boot.  But not that you mention it I did throw an old NIC card in my system for LAN parties and such ill remove it and see what happens