Cannot boot from USB external CD drive

ggilm

Honorable
May 4, 2013
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0
10,510
I have a Toshiba Satellite S75-B7314 A660 services running Windows 7. My internal CD/DVD drive has failed two weeks ago and I purchased an external CD/DVD drive. I'm formatting the laptop and cannot boot from the external drive after setting the BIOS to first boot from USB, gives me an error saying no boot device found. In the BIOS, I disabled secure boot and changed to UEFI with no luck. When I press 0 at bootup, I get a screen that tells me, “the hard drive recovery process has been selected, when I choose yes, he goes right into booting windows up. F8 brings me to a menu to select recovery methods but my external CD is not recognized at that point. When windows boots, the external drive is recognized then. Reason for formatting my laptop is every year I maintenance the laptop, back data up, wipe the drive to start clean.
Need help t0 boot from USB external CD drive.
 
Solution
A CDROM or DVDROM plugged into USB is *not* booting from USB, it's booting from Optical Disk.

(Booting from USB is booting from a flash drive plugged into the same USB port. Different code is used to boot from a flash drive then to boot from an optical drive plugged into USB).

With teh external USB drive plugged in, go back to the BIOS, look at your boot sequence and make sure your optical disk is earlier in the boot sequence than the HDD. Many BIOS also let you hit F12 during boot to get a menu of bootable devices -- if your Toshiba can do that it will be documented in the users' manual.

R_1

Expert
Ambassador
which external? if it is a laptop unit it may fit in the laptop. replacing an optical on most laptops is fairly easy. usually it is one screw securing the unit. remove screw, remove unit. insert new unit insert screw and done.

what I mean by laptop unit.
https://erp.atcpics.com/ltimages/ebay/102-1006-1212/102-1006-1212_k.jpg
this is a standard laptop CD drive in an external enclosure and will be at home in a laptop.
standard has a few heights. measure the height of the external and verify that it matches the drive in the laptop. 7mm, 9mm, or 12mm high. all other dimensions will be the same.
if the external will not fit I suggest replacement of the laptop drive.
 
A CDROM or DVDROM plugged into USB is *not* booting from USB, it's booting from Optical Disk.

(Booting from USB is booting from a flash drive plugged into the same USB port. Different code is used to boot from a flash drive then to boot from an optical drive plugged into USB).

With teh external USB drive plugged in, go back to the BIOS, look at your boot sequence and make sure your optical disk is earlier in the boot sequence than the HDD. Many BIOS also let you hit F12 during boot to get a menu of bootable devices -- if your Toshiba can do that it will be documented in the users' manual.
 
Solution

ggilm

Honorable
May 4, 2013
8
0
10,510
I moved the Optical drive to the top (OSD) and it still looks for my internal DVD drive. I disabled the drive in Device Manager and it still didn't matter.



 

ggilm

Honorable
May 4, 2013
8
0
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I could replace, order a new DVD drive, researched and it's easy to replace.





 

ggilm

Honorable
May 4, 2013
8
0
10,510
I could replace, order a new DVD drive, researched and it's easy to replace.



 

ggilm

Honorable
May 4, 2013
8
0
10,510