Question Windows 7 disc won't boot.

Jun 24, 2020
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Recently my hard drive died so I purchased a new hard drive. I went into the BIOS and set my CD/DVD as the first in the boot priority. However when I put my windows 7 disc in, it sounds like it's trying to read it but then the screen tells me to insert bootable media and press any key. It refuses to boot from the disc or install windows and I have no access to another PC to create a USB boot drive or disc image.

I made sure the CD/DVD was set as priority, tried a different CD/DVD drive, set the BIOS to default, cleaned the disc (it has no smudges or scratches on it) etc. Nothing I have tried works. It either tells me to insert bootable media or it goes to a screen telling me to disconnect any drives without an operating system. Unsure how to get past this.
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Leave the drive that you will be booting from as the default boot drive. Disconnect any other HDD/SSD's in the system.
When you startup the PC, at the same time as you see the "Press XX key to enter setup" there will be another option to pick the boot drive. Press that F-key. Often its F10, 11, or 12
 
Jun 24, 2020
2
0
10
There are no other drives connected to the system. When I leave the drive I want to install on as priority it says the bootmgr is missing. When I press f8 and tell it to run the disc while the drive is prioritised it tries for a while then repeats the message about inserting bootable media.

I did use diskpart to partition, format to ntfs and label the drive before trying to install.