New
#1
Can a failing hard drive mess with booting from a CD?
TL;DR below, though the text explains the problem more specifically.
Recently I had to troubleshoot my brother's computer as it would not boot up anymore; even safe mode would hang at loading files. We ran a start-up repair and after 2 hours it didn't work so we decided (like we usually do when booting up becomes a problem) to boot from the installation CD and reformat the drive.
This is where things got strange; upon booting it would load the windows files like normal, then show the windows logo. After that it goes to a black screen with a cursor... and stays on that screen for 5 or so minutes (much longer than it should be) until finally popping up to the start up screen (sometimes it would not pop up). We then hit the "Install Now" button and it goes to the "Setup is Starting" screen. Once here it just hangs (though the cursor is spinning); we waited about 15 minutes before shutting down.
At first I thought maybe the disc can't be read correctly, so after trying my other disc and even an external disc drive (thinking his internal one is shot), I still had the same problems. So as a last attempt I unplugged the problem HDD and booted from the CD; black screen lasted less than a minute and upon clicking "Install Now" the setup screen showed up for a few seconds and then it finally proceeded to the rest of the installation. I now know the HDD is obviously gone so I bought a new one and Windows 7 is currently installing as I type this, but my question is why would the hard drive make booting from the CD impossible, and I haven't even got to the part where I choose which drive to format? I have fixed a few computers and did plenty of installs and this was the first time where it was the HDD preventing me from even being able to reformat it.
TL;DR - How can a hard drive prevent me from booting from a CD when I haven't got to the part to choose a drive to format?
Thanks in advanced!
P.S. I wasn't sure if this was the correct sub-forum, but it had something to do with the installation disc. Sorry if I posted in the wrong place.