Window's won't boot from disk!

[Vampirebat666]

I want to totally format my hard drive and start from scratch with my pc. I put the official windows disk in the drive and entered my BIOS. I changed the boot options so that it would primarily boot from disk, secondly from floppy and lastly from Hard Drive, saved and exited the BIOS. It then goes through the usual start-up screens until it says: Boot from disk... Press any key to boot from disk... I press any key and it still loads up from the Hard Drive! I also tried entering the boot set-up from the first start up screen which comes up with a list of the usual options i.e. CDROM, Floppy, HDD etc. but when I enter this my keyboard doesn't seem to want to work, I can't scroll through the options, select an option or eve Esc and have to reset the whole thing.

 

There are a few things that I thought may have caused the problem:

1) The CD Drive it was in. So, I tried putting it in both and still no further forward.

2) The fact that I have Windows XP Home edition and I was trying to over-write it with Windows XP Professonal (an apparently older version than that I already have installed). I was told that this should make no difference and that I should be able to replace Vista with 95 if I so wished.

3) That I had my pc protected by a password. I turned this setting off and it still won't work.

 

Any ideas?

[wellies]

Are you able to try the disk on another computer to see if the boot-up from disk will work?

[Jelly Bean]

Are you using a USB keyboard and mouse?

 

If yes then switch to PS/2.

 

Load defaults in BIOS then set boot to:

 

CD rom.

Hard drive.

Floppy.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

On a new XP install USB drivers are not loaded immediately so that's why your keyboard won/t work, it has to be PS2.

 

On the other point you can always update/grade the OS to a higher version but you have no chance of replacing Vista with 95 unless the partition was completely devoid of Vista, and even if you could I very much doubt the hardware and 95 would like each other.

[wellies]

But don't most motherboards have USB legacy support? That could need enabling I suppose.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

This may well be the case Martin but to enable that support in the first place you have to have a PS2 keyboard.

 

I had this very same issue on an old Dell box I had running off a USB K/B and mouse, actually when it comes down to brass tacks you don't even need the mouse but it does help a lot.

 

I had to swap out the USB K/B and use a PS2 K/B for the install.

 

You may be thinking of the aspect of booting from a USB cdrom drive perhaps.

[Jelly Bean]

I do the same as Wolfey, I swop to a PS/2 keyboard for installs then changes back to USB once everything is setup.

 

As BIOS was reset USB support for a USB keyboard is not set hence use a PS/2.

[wellies]

Just a misunderstanding there because resetting the BIOS on my motherboard leaves the USB support (and so the USB keyboard) working.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

I'll ask Vampire a question.

 

Did it allow you to alter the boot options whilst XP was still the operating system?

 

It should have done because the usb drivers are already installed, now what happens next is the issue.

 

Once booting from the cdrom it no longer has access to the operating system that is installed and therefore looks for boot files first before loading any usb drivers.

 

It will however load generic mouse and keyboard drivers, ie PS2.

 

This does not happen now on newer boards.

[Vampirebat666]

I will try and get my hands on a ps/2 keyboard but yes, xp is still the operating system on my hard drive when I'm trying to change the boot options. Thanks for the help everyone, will let you know if it works after I try ^_^

[Guest Wolfeymole]

And up to the point just before trying to boot from the cdrom you are able to change and save the options yes?