XP CD won't boot

[speedstar]

My computer is having problems, restarts when windows xp loads, even in safe mode. So i want to do a clean install on the hd, wipe everything and reinstall windows. The problem is that i can't get my windows cd to boot. I tried changing the bios to boot from the cd drive first but it still doesn't boot from the CD. Anyone know what i can do to make the cd boot before windows is loaded and restarts? I'm thinking there might be something wrong with the cd that doesn't make it bootable anymore.

 

[gomerpile]

What exactly is the error promp that come up when the CD is put in. If no error at all and the CD rom lit is blinking or stops. It would be the CD rom drive or CD disk.

 

[speedstar]

There is no error, the cd just won't auto boot itself.

 

[gomerpile]

so your saying that the system boots to windows after searching for a boot on the CD. YOU cannot see the C:\ prompt message. Well only you know if there is a scratch on the Cd that is preventing the CD from reading correctly. If so contact MS for a new disk

 

[speedstar]

yeah, the c:\ message to boot from cd never shows. i was wondering if there a way to force it to boot the cd without the cd being bootable.

 

[gomerpile]

do a google for extracting&burning xp boot IMG from CD

 

[4Ryan6]

i was wondering if there a way to force it to boot the cd without the cd being bootable.

I suggest getting a diagnostic disk for the harddrive and low level formating it, cause it sounds like you have a virus on the HDD anyway!

If you have a virus and its gotten in your boot record a WinXP format won't remove that, a low level format, or disk wipe, or zero fill, wipes the entire HDD including any old boot record.

Then clear and reset the CMOS and try to reinstall from that point.

If all that fails and you have a floppy drive, you can download a set of WinXP floppy bootdisks from www.bootdisk.com thats slow but pretty much bullet proof, unless you're experiencing optical drive hardware failure and when the time comes for the boot process to switch to the optical drive it won't.

When you say CDROM drive I hope you're refering to either a DVDROM, CDRW, DVDRW, and not an actual CDROM drive, cause WinXP doesn't like old CDROM drives, the first error it receives it defaults to PIO transfer mode!

So if you are still using a CDROM drive Lose it, I haven't used an actual CDROM drive in 2 1/2 years!