Strange problem with the PC not booting from setup disc

[173a]

Hey everyone,

I am having a strange problem with trying to install Windows XP on my MSI KT880 Delta, Athlon XP system. When I try booting from cd, the drive twitches a bit for half a minute maybe, but the boot from cd message never comes up, then it proceeds to boot from the hdd (which currently has Win98 on it, that had installed without any issues btw). Both the hdd and the optical drive are ide, both are masters and sit on two separate cables, I also tried swapping the cables (optical drive on ide port 1 or 2) and tried it as master or cable select. The optical drive model is Toshiba Samsung SH-S182, I also tried it with a Liteon SOHR-5238S without any luck. I know that both the optical drive and the cd are ok, since I've installed windows xp using both onto a ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 pc just a couple of days ago. What could be cause of this behaviour (almost certain it's the motherboard)?

[Mcinwwl]

Boot order in BIOS? You do not mention it, and it sounds like #1 thing to do.

[173a]

37 minutes ago, Mcinwwl said:

Boot order in BIOS? You do not mention it, and it sounds like #1 thing to do.

cdrom first, but it doesn't work even when I specify cdrom from the bootmenu.

[RainyShadow]

Did you try with another bootable CD? This one may have got scratched after you used it the last time. Try scanning it with Nero CD-DVD Speed (the 4.x versions work fine on Win98) or a similar tool.

 

You can install from HDD. Copy the CD contents to your HDD and run \setup.exe or i386\winnt32.exe

[jaclaz]

Only as a test, try booting from the CD after having physically disconnected the hard disk.

It is possible that for *some reasons* the little program that "detects" the presence of a hard disk and prompts to press a key to boot from CD instead (bootfix.bin) does not work as intended.

This might happen more likely if using the F12 (or *whatever*) boot menu change of boot order, but you never know:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/154015-cannot-boot-from-cddvd-unless-hdd-is-blank/

jaclaz

[173a]

8 hours ago, RainyShadow said:

Did you try with another bootable CD? This one may have got scratched after you used it the last time. Try scanning it with Nero CD-DVD Speed (the 4.x versions work fine on Win98) or a similar tool.

 

You can install from HDD. Copy the CD contents to your HDD and run \setup.exe or i386\winnt32.exe

Just burned 2 of them, different isos too, they are in mint condition.

5 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Only as a test, try booting from the CD after having physically disconnected the hard disk.

It is possible that for *some reasons* the little program that "detects" the presence of a hard disk and prompts to press a key to boot from CD instead (bootfix.bin) does not work as intended.

This might happen more likely if using the F12 (or *whatever*) boot menu change of boot order, but you never know:

https://msfn.org/board/topic/154015-cannot-boot-from-cddvd-unless-hdd-is-blank/

jaclaz

I may try it later, since I've now pulled out all the unnecessary cables and closed the case. The issue has in fact partially been resolved. I was able to boot from one of my other old Windows XP cds, an almost 10 year old disc in fact (March 2011). This is a strange issue indeed, since the two new cds that I've burned are not being detected even in Windows (the newly installed Windows XP, I forgot to check them in 98), I cannot even "explore" them and they come up as "CD-R". Upon seeing this, I've immediately whipped out my ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 system (luckily it's still all on a piece of cardboard) just to double check and both cds are readable just fine in windows with the optical drive icon coming up as the XP installation discs, thats using that very same Toshiba Samsung SH-S182 drive mind you. It's definitely something with the motherboard, but I am really at a loss as to what it could be.

Edited August 31, 2020 by 173a

[RainyShadow]

This  may be useful. I normally use the version installed by XOSL, but the standalone should be enough.

Another option is PLOP boot manager.

Edited August 31, 2020 by RainyShadow

[jaclaz]

2 hours ago, 173a said:

I cannot even "explore" them and they come up as "CD-R". Upon seeing this, I've immediately whipped out my ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 system (luckily it's still all on a piece of cardboard) just to double check and both cds are readable just fine in windows with the optical drive icon coming up as the XP installation discs, thats using that very same Toshiba Samsung SH-S182 drive mind you. It's definitely something with the motherboard, but I am really at a loss as to what it could be.

Queer. 

I mean, the previous issue was "at BIOS level", this seems like extending to "OS level".

Which OS do you have running on the ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 system?

An XP or a later system?

Is it not that *somehow* you burned them with (say) UDF (or something else) that the XP cannot recognize?

jaclaz

[173a]

1 hour ago, jaclaz said:

Which OS do you have running on the ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 system?

An XP or a later system?

Is it not that *somehow* you burned them with (say) UDF (or something else) that the XP cannot recognize?

The ECS K8M800-M2, Athlon 64 system runs XP, installed exactly from one of these two CDs that fail to read on the KT880 Delta system. The other XP system (ECS K8M800-M2) with a motherboard of similar age and chipset maker functions properly. They both have latest BIOSes dated 2005-something.

I burned the discs with CDBurnerXP on a Windows 10 system, they are just regular iso images, had them both for years (the images I mean).

Only other thing that I can think of, is that I "finalized" the discs when burning, I may burn another one as an experiment without finalizing it and see how it goes.

[jaclaz]

1 hour ago, 173a said:

Only other thing that I can think of, is that I "finalized" the discs when burning, I may burn another one as an experiment without finalizing it and see how it goes.

Yep, but that might account for the "BIOS level" issue, not for the "OS level" one, with the HAL and (presumably) the same drivers installed for the same hardware (besides the same OS).

jaclaz