My Vista Laptop won't boot.

[Captainseo]

Hi

I have a laptop that won't boot. I have set it to boot from DVD, but whatever disc I put in, it always goes to startup repair which then fails and the same happens over and over again.

Any ideas how to get this working again?

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Sounds like it isn't actually booting from the DVD. When you changed the boot device settings in BIOS Setup, did you use the "Save and exit"? to save your new boot setting?

Alternatively, with the DVD already in the drive, restart and immmediately keep tapping F12 (F11 on some laptops) until the boot device selector appears. Highlight the CD/DVD Drive item and press <Enter>. Using that method does not change the existing boot sequence that's in BIOS Setup and it's the safer method since you don't have to go messing with the BIOS settings and risk changing something you shouldn't have.

 

[Captainseo]

I have tried both of these methods and the disc is being ignored. I've tried various discs that I know to be bootable.

USB doesn't appear in the boot menu, so I don't think that is an option.

A little more info that may help:
I want to boot to RescueKit 11 so that I can save any pictures and docs on the hard drive.
I haven't tried booting using a Vista CD yet.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Yes, use a disc that you definitely know is bootable (a factory-made one like that Vista disc). If that doesn't work I would suspect the DVD drive is faulty.

Incidentally, if you're trying to boot from a DVD, are you sure your optical drive can actually read DVD media?