PC Hangs if Booting Off CD/DVD

[1234s282]

Hi

I have a very annoying problem - hopefully someone on here can work it out.

My PC came with a standard CD/DVD reader plus a CD Writer (all in one drive though)

I wanted to burn DVD's so i bought a "Superdrive" which writes to all CD and DVD media.

From within windows , the drive does all its supposed to.

However , i am trying to do a reinstall which i have done before ( pc very slow , want to start again , clean install etc)

When i boot up my computer with my XP CD and i get the "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" message , setup inspects my hardware configuration then hangs for 10 mins or so. After 10 mins , i get the blue screen with Windows Setup at the top etc and it says "Setup is loading components" (COMPONENT NAME HERE)apart from it takes about 20 minutes to get off thescreen and to get to where you can start specifying options eg where you want to install etc. This is what i dont understand because the old drive didnt have a problem and the component names flew past so fast i couldnt read them. However , with the new "Superdrive" the drive whirs up and makes quite a bit of noise (normal though) and then it suddenly dies down and is really quiet for 10 mins. Then it starts spinning back up and carries on with the install.

I thought it might be the drive failing , however i doubt it as the drive is only 3 months old

Hopefully someone will be able to shed some light on this

Help much appreciated

[Ponch]

Do you have both drives now in the machine or did you remove the DVD-CDRW combo ? Did you doublecheck the jumpers ?

[1234s282]

Yes i removed the CDRW combo first and uninstalled its drivers.

The Superdrive is set as master so the jumper settings are all right

[nitroshift]

Also, make sure the media (the CD itself) hasn`t got any fingerprints, dirt or scratches on it. Maybe cloning it will help...

[1234s282]

Thanks for the suggestion nitroshift but ive used several different bootable discs and they have all frozen. Also , i know that these discs have defininitely worked because ive used them before (with the old CDRW combo)

Hope this helps someone to work this out for me

Thanks for all the suggestions so far

[nitroshift]

The last resort before sending the drive back is a firmware update off the manufacturer site.

[1234s282]

Ive found the latest firmware update but i cannot test it as my pc is currently sufffering from a dead hard drive. Im getting a new hard drive tomorrow.

and as to sending it back , it works like it should in windows , its just booting off discs when it freezes up and i got it form a computer fair (brand new though)

As to a clean install on the new drive tomorrow , the only thing i can think of is to replace the CDRW combo (thank goodness ive still got it) , do the clean install , then change the drives over and install the firmware. Unfortunately , there are no spare IDE connectors in my machine as i was planning to connect the combo and the DVD burner at the same time so i could listen to music and play games at the same time etc. I might get one of those addd on PCI cards off ebay for that though:)

All help so far much appreciated

Edited November 22, 2007 by 1234s282

[nitroshift]

Funny thing you mentioned about the hard-drive. I was about to advice you to try the optical drive into a different pc. Once the new hard drive will arrive, please come back here and let us know whether changing it has improved the boot time

[1234s282]

So does this mean that my old failing hard drive might have been the cause of the cd freezing?

So it wont freeze when i install on the new drive?

And also , i cant check whether it improves the boot time if i cant install windows because the drive freezes.

I think il replace the CDRW combo , install windows onto the new drive , then replace the DVD burner and install the firmware update

Thanks for everyones help so far

[LeveL]

Might be the ACPI.

When you boot off a Windows disc and it is flashing through all the files bottom left (loading files) press F5 and choose "Standard PC". Its just a suggestion but I have had Windows 2000 freeze on me in VMware for like 20 or 30 minutes before it decides it can work.

What you describe sounds more like a Hardware Abstraction Layer problem rather than booting off the disc because from what I gather you can actually boot from a disc, its the part of setup after that thats the problem? "setup inspects my hardware configuration then hangs for 10 mins or so" yep, sounds like the HAL is screwy, but choosing "Standard PC" works.

Edited November 22, 2007 by LeveL

[1234s282]

Thanks for the suggestion Level , im getting my new hard drive sometime soon so il be able to test it out .

You dont think that the failing hard drive could have had anything to do with it do you?

Also , is it possible to restore the Hardware Abstraction Layer if its "screwy" as you put it?

Oh and another thing , where do i press F5 in vista install because im not installing xp

Edited November 24, 2007 by 1234s282