EDIT : look what I just found !!!
No need to bother taking apart my two spare IBM computers to try their CD drives !
I have a junk box full of old IDE FDD/HDD/CD... 7 CD drives look !! ![Laughing :-DD](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley_laughing.gif)
Cool.... I am covered ![Cool 8)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/cool.gif)
![](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/test-equipment-anonymous-(tea)-group-therapy-thread/?action=dlattach;attach=1558573;image)
Now, the CD/CF problems are sorted out, until you've get the CF adapter, go back to the Rochar Nixie DVM. ![Rant :rant:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/rant.gif)
Hmmm...sorry but it looks like this CD booting problem is more difficult to solve than this I am afraid !
![Banging Head |O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/bangheadonwall.gif)
Spent a couple hours on it now.... it's a mystery, I just don't understand what's going on...
1) First, I tried the OEM "rescue" CD supplied with the computer, seeing as this one at least I was sure was supposed to boot from this computer... and guess what, it DOES boot fine !!
![Shocked :o](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/shocked.gif)
So why doesn't my old WinXP Cd boot then ?
2) My CD has gone bad ? Nope, tried it on my main PC, boots just fine.
3) So maybe because it's a CDR, the OEM CD drive is too old to work with a CD-R ?..... nope, if I boot Win95, my WinXP CD is detected just fine and the file explorer cannavigate that disc just fine, it's 100% responsive, the drive has zero trouble reading this 20 year old CDR.... and didn't have any trouble reading the CDR I Made when I installed W2K the other day.
4) So, I tried a couple of my salvaged CD drives, which are a tad younger, some can even red DVD's. Well.... same problem : they boot the old resuce CD just fine, but won't boot my WinXP CD !!!
![Shocked :o](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/shocked.gif)
So.... how weird is that !!!
![WTF? :wtf:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/wtf2.gif)
I am stuck now... it's not a drive problem it looks like !
So looks like a BIOS issue then ? It's only able to boot from very old boot CD's..... can't boot an XP CD from 2002. The norm/Standard that defines how Bootable CD's work... must have evolved. Or maybe old BIOSes implemented the standard only partially, or incorrectly, and it was good enough to work with the CD's of the day, but not newer ones. I don't know, but that's really very odd !
I am stuck now !
EDIT : ALSO, I tried the W2K CD on my main computer, and it won't boot either ! No wonder it didn't boot on the old machine !
Thinking of it, I don't recall the website I downloaded it from, ever said it was bootable.... I think it just said "Install" CD and it must have been me wrongly extrapolating this to mean "bootable".. my fault I guess.
So I searched for a bootable ISO this time, and found this site that clearly states their ISO is bootable :
https://archive.org/details/enwin2000prosp4_202001So I burned that onto a CDRW, my last one, because it looks like I have run out of CDR. Well... that disc (on my main computer) fails to boot as well !
![Banging Head |O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/bangheadonwall.gif)
I am cursed I told you !!!
![Banging Head |O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/bangheadonwall.gif)
So looks like I may take Robert on his W2K CD offer..... Robert if you could rip the ISO from your disc and upload it somewhere ?
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif)
I will get a new stack of fresh CDRs (works better than CDRW IIRC, on old computers). I hope my local supermarket still sells these old things....
![Face Palm :palm:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/facepalm.gif)