Waiting on a CD
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I recently moved my Windows XP partition to a new hard drive using Partition Magic 8. After this, the computer hangs at the Boot from CD prompt. I then installed Windows 7 RC on another partition. It still hangs at the Boot from CD prompt unless I put a bootable disk in the drive and let the timer expire. Then it will boot into Windows 7.
Partition Magic says that my Windows XP install partition is healthy (active, primary partition) and my Windows 7 partition lists healthy (boot, page file, crash dump, primary partition).
—Levi Harp
If you’re stuck on the Boot from CD prompt, your best bet is to give the disk you want to boot from a higher priority than your optical drive. Go into your BIOS (by pressing Del or F10 at startup, depending on your BIOS manufacturer) and set the boot order so that whichever device you want to boot from—that is, whichever hard drive has your master boot record on it—is first on the list. Assuming nothing’s changed in your system, Windows 7 will write the code it uses to boot in the active partition on the first hard drive in your boot order. You can set the CD-ROM drive to boot first next time you need to boot from a CD.
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blkpanthr
December 30, 2009 at 11:17am
this actually sounds like the boot record is hosed not a boot order issue...since he appears to be dual booting, and youve migrated one of the partitions, the boot record most lilely needs to be rebuilt.
there was a utility a couple months ago listed in MPC, cant recall the name right now, that i use whenever i screw up my dual boot. works great.
pastorbob
December 29, 2009 at 5:51pm
F10. Many Compaqs (among others) go into setup when F10 is hit on bootup. I have two such systems. And what he decribes sounds exactly like it's not accessing the correct hard disk partition initially. Raising it to top priority in the boot order is excellent advice.
Furthermore what does oem's being set to boot from cd have to do with this problem? Perhaps you should go back and learn a little bit about computers before ya criticize the Doc.
pastorbob
December 30, 2009 at 3:29pm
Good point. And Dell (or at least the one I have) watches for F12 which takes you to the boot menu. One option on that menu is to enter setup.
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