Problem installing windows from CD.

tom42

Honorable
Oct 30, 2014
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I can't seem to get my m.b. to boot up from the windows installation CD. I set the bios to "boot from CD" and have a freshly formatted HD in the machine but get a mesage "windows failed to start. A recent h/w or s/w change might be the cause............"

Status: 0xc000000f
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.


I loaded windows successfully into this same machine many months ago and nothing has changed that I know of. I have an identical machine with the same mobo and it now also has the same problem. I changed the bios batteries just in case, but no help.
Am I doing something wrong?
 


Did you select the CD as the boot device?
 


see original message " I set the bios to "boot from CD"
 


Well then either your CD drive or CD disk is bad.

Do you have another PC to see if you can boot with that CD? If your CD disk is bad, you can get a replacement from amazon for cheap.

If your CD drive is bad, those optical drives are so cheap now it is also a trivial expense. But first try unplugging and replugging the power cable and the sata cable. If you have a different sata cable, try that. Also try a different sata power connector.
 
You replied:"Do you have another PC to see if you can boot with that CD?"
In my original message, I said
"I have an identical machine with the same mobo and it now also has the same problem."

You also say: "If your CD disk is bad, you can get a replacement from amazon for cheap."

Amazon will give me a Windows CD for cheap? Really?

You also say: "But first try unplugging and replugging the power cable and the sata cable. If you have a different sata cable, try that. Also try a different sata power connector."
But I've been using that CD drive with that power cable and its IDE ( yes it's an IDE drive) cable to write and read CDs as recently as last week with no problems.