"press any key to boot from CD or DVD" doesn't always appear at bootup

RCM · 22 May 2012

It's nearly 4 AM. I'm really tired, and tired of fiddling with Win7 for tonight. I'll be back around tomorrow afternoon and see what's up then. Thanks to those who have responded so far. Good night for now.

RCM · 22 May 2012

Hey DavidW7ncus,

-from my 1st post-
BIOS is set to boot 1st from CD/DVD, then USB CD/DVD, USB HD, internal HD (OS). BIOS is also set to AHCI SATA mode.

You are trying to boot from CD/DVD before the Windows HD installation starts to load...

There is no installation going on. The computer boots and runs just fine (except for all the bloat). Some of the 'Bootable' CD/DVDs that I have (that ARE Win7 compatible, and very recent) are not being recognized, others ARE recognized.

Thanks

Until tomorrow - good night. :)

DavidE · 22 May 2012

I understand there is no installation going on.
I was trying to get your PC to hang while trying to boot so you could see any error message(s).

Right now, if the CD/DVD is not bootable, it will look for the next boot device(s), and boot from your Hard Drive
clarify: (Win 7 already installed).

If you can remove your Hard Drive as a bootable device, it should not boot...
And hopefully you will see specific error(s)...

DavidE · 22 May 2012

You also have two DVD drives, right?
Have you tried booting these bad disc's from both drives?

Some of the 'Bootable' CD/DVDs that I have (that ARE Windows 7 compatible, and very recent) are not being recognized, others ARE recognized.

Can you explain why you have so many "bootable Win 7 ISO discs"?
Are they Windows 7 OS discs, or something else...?
What are they, and why do you need them?

TVeblen · 22 May 2012

One thing to make sure we are clear on:
Booting from a bootable CD/DVD, regardless of what format it was created in, is handled by the BIOS. Windows has nothing to do with this process.
It does not matter what platform was used to create a bootable disk. To be bootable it must be created and operate to known standards. There is no such thing as a "Windows Compatible" Boot Disk.

The BIOS just looks for a device to boot from. It goes down the boot order until it finds a device that contains bootable media. So your issue is that the BIOS is not recognizing (known) bootable media in the CD/DVD drive. It continues on until it finds the hard drive where it does find something to boot.

The issue is somewhat common with some brands of SATA optical drives (in addition to the issue of some brands of optical media mentioned previously). The drives are too slow to be picked up by the BIOS before it moves on.

The first thing I would suggest is to simplify your system during it's setup. One hard disk, one optical drive. Get the OS up and running the way you like and then add additional components afterward. See if the problem is solved if only one optical drive is connected.

I have this problem also with my optical drive. It is hit or miss. One test to see if it is a slow recognition problem is simple:
Install the bootable DVD in the drive and re-start, if the boot loader stalls at "CD Boot Device....Ready__", or if it bi-passes the optical drive, simply hit the RESET button on your case to re-boot, and many times it will progress to "Press Any Key to Boot From CD" the second time around.

Let us know what you find.

gregrocker · 22 May 2012

You'll not get the prompt to "press any key" unless there is a bootable disk in drive. Try setting HD to boot first, then trigger disk when needed using Dell F12 key at boot.

Most tech enthusiasts would never run the corrupt bloated factory preinstall but instead Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 to get best performance. Everything you need is in the link.

Until then you can Clean Up Factory Bloatware which will solve many problems by shrugging off the freeloaders and cleaning up after their mess.

RCM · 22 May 2012

Hey again DavidW7ncus

You also have two DVD drives, right?
Have you tried booting these bad disc's from both drives?

I have 2 internal DVD drives, and 2 external USB drives (1-CD, 1-DVD). Yes, I have tried all of these drives. The external drives do boot the disks on my other computers without a problem. The disks are not 'bad', Win7 won't recognize them.

Some of the 'Bootable' CD/DVDs that I have (that ARE Windows 7 compatible, and very recent) are not being recognized, others ARE recognized. Can you explain why you have so many "bootable Win 7 ISO discs"?

So many??? 1 original & 1 archive copy of my Dell OEM Win7 Pro disk. Not ISO disks.

Are they Windows 7 OS discs, or something else...?
What are they, and why do you need them?

The 4 CD disks I'm having problems with are Backup & Recovery programs and Partitioning programs from both MiniTool and Paragon. I try out different free software as a hobby to recommend to my friends & family. See Problem/question #2 in my original post for why I may need them.

It really does not make any difference what the disk are, or why I 'need' them. The matter of the fact is that Win7 is not recognizing disks that it should. Why not is the question.

Ron

TVeblen thanks for the response

Booting from a bootable CD/DVD, regardless of what format it was created in, is handled by the BIOS. Windows has nothing to do with this process.

The BIOS is set correctly. And I have tried several configurations for the boot order with no different results. (see original post for current layout)

If Windows has nothing to do with the process of recognizing CD/DVD disks, then the problem is with the BIOS only? It's a brand new computer and the BIOS is the latest revision. Any idea why would it recognize some disks and not others?

There is no such thing as a "Windows Compatible" Boot Disk.

All software is compatible with some OS or another. i.e. compatible with: Windows 98, XP, Vista, Win7 - or Linux or Mac OS.

Some disks are either 'bootable' at startup or not. When the system is up and running, some disks automatically run when inserted, and others must access the programs to run on the disk through a file manages, such as Win Explorer.

Get the OS up and running the way you like...

The OS is up and running just fine (just don't sneeze lol).

...if it bi-passes the optical drive, simply hit the RESET button on your case to re-boot, and many times it will progress to "Press Any Key to Boot From CD" the second time around.

There is no reset button. I have pressed the power button several times to turn the system off right after Win7 did not recognize the disk and made it try again. Never helps. It is not bi-passing the optical drives, it works with some disks and not others. Why?

Ron

seavixen32 · 22 May 2012

Have you considered checking whether there are any firmware updates for your BIOS?

RCM · 22 May 2012

Thanks for the response seavixen32.

Have you considered checking whether there are any firmware updates for your BIOS?

Yes, I have checked. I did that early on.

Ron

Victor S · 22 May 2012

I've had the boot miss the DVD occasionally.
Just attributed it to a slow read due to flaky optics, and maybe BIOS timing
moving the sequence forward.
Reboot has always picked it up on the second pass.
Acronis doesn't put pagefile.sys or hiberfil.sys on the image, just the file names.
Read that somewhere.
I use Ghost 15. Never looked for them on an image with Ghost Explorer, but I know they don't get imaged, just from confirming file sizes and size imaged.