Changing boot order in windows 7 home premium

[phenix]

I am trying to help a friend access his CD before the HD in Windows 7 home premium.
If I tab down to the CD and press enter as directed and hit save and exit,
the boot order is not changed. What do I have to do to accomplish this?
I am able to do this in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit with no problem.
Thanks for any direction of how to fix this.

 

[fireberd]

Not knowing what the friend's PC is we can only guess or offer general suggestions.

First thing, most BIOS' have an option to select the boot device by an F key at boot up. On many, that is F12. On others it may be F8 or F2. That will give you the menu with the various boot devices (e.g. CD drive or hard drive). You select the drive there to boot from.

 

[phenix]

Thank you very much for replying Fireberd.
Sorry for the omission. The computer of my friend is a Dell.
I can get in the bios. That is not the problem.
The boot sequence is as follows:
A. Hard Drive 1
Cd drive. 2

What I need to do is reverse them as follows:
B. CD drive 1
Hard Drive 2

This does not work for me. If I power down the puter and start up again
and go back into the BIOS the boot sequence shows as (A).
As stated above, I scroll down to the CD drive and Press Enter then save and
exit from the bios.
This puter is running Windows 7 32-bit home premium.

 

[fireberd]

F12, on a Dell at power on will get you to the boot menu.

 

[phenix]

I have no problem getting to the boot menu.
After I get there previous messages tell the sad story.

 

[fireberd]

If you have a bootable disc in the drive, and select that drive it doesn't boot?

You mention "CD" drive. If it IS a CD drive and you have a bootable DVD then that could be the reason.

What model Dell? for example Dimension 5150, Inspiron 660, XPS8500, etc.

You don't have to set the boot order in the BIOS, just select the device (e.g. CD drive) from the F12 menu. I worked the Dell forum for over 10 years and that is how it works.

 

[phenix]

It is a Dell Inspiron. don't know the model #.

Here is what I need to do.
Back up the HD with a program called Clonezilla-live.
This requires me to shut down the puter and put the Clonezill-live.iso CD
in the CD drive. Boot up and it should read the CD in the CD drive.
This is not happening because the Boot order is HD/cd not cd/HD.

 

[fireberd]

You should be able to select the CD drive, from the list in F12 and boot from it, regardless of the boot order. That is the way it is designed to work, in ALL Dell's. F12, if the hard drive has not been modified and the hardware diagnostics deleted will also allow accessing the hardware diagnostics on the hard drive. F8 at power on will allow accessing the Dell "PC Restore" (recovery) partition, again if it has not been deleted and the MBR not changed.

If you cannot access the optical drive (CD) or it won't boot from it, that suggests either a BIOS problem or a hardware problem with the CD drive. You can try resetting the CMOS memory (BIOS) by (with the PC Powered Off) removing the CR2032 battery on the motherboard for at least 10 minutes.

And another possibility, the CD you want to boot from is either corrupt or not bootable.

 

[whs]

F12 changes the boot order temporaarily (only for that one run). For a permanent change you have to go into the BIOS with F2 and then to the boot tab. From there read the instructiosn on the right side ot the screen.

 

[fireberd]

He, apparently, can't get it to boot from the Disc he has from F12, and is unable to change the BIOS so the CD drive is the first boot device.

I suspect he has a corrupt disc or one that is not bootable.

Jack

 

[whs]

Jack, you ae probably right. He should check the disc on another system. Or check whether he can boot with e.g. a live Linux CD.

 

[AddRAM]

Once your in the bios, go to the boot screen. Highlight the cd/dvd drive and move it up to first on the list with the arrow key or the plus/minus key (it will tell you which to use at the bottom or right side of the screen) then save (ususally F10) and exit the bios.

To check, just reboot and go back into the bios.

 

[phenix]

The Clonezilla-live iso cd boots from both puters in my home and has been doing
so for years. An HP windows 7 pro 64-bit and a Dell windows pro 32-bit.
The Bios in both putters has been changed to boot the CD 1st and the HD 2nd.
This doesn't work for me on my friends Dell Inspiron running Windows & home
premium. 32-bit.
The Clonezilla-live iso cd boots when the puter is shut down and restarted.

Addram - the suggestion you gave has been tried on the Dell windows home
premium puter and doesn't work. When the CD is highlighted the "Press xxx"
is highlighted and you can NOT move the item in either direction.

 

[AddRAM]

So, you`re saying you can not change the boot order in the bios in your friend`s Dell Inspiron, Is that correct ?

You have highlighted the cd/dvd drive and you are unable to move it up to 1st on the list before you save and exit, is that correct ?

Are you actually moving the cd/dvd drive up to 1st before saving and exiting ?

 

[phenix]

The first 2 statements are correct.

The 3rd statement is not correct.
I highlight the CD entry.
This highlights "press enter". I press it and
save it and exit. The entry can NOT be moved up or down.
Shut down the puter and restart it.
The puter then boots into windows and ignores the CD

Also there is nothing wrong with the Clonezilla-live cd.
It works in my home puters.

 

[AddRAM]

You can not just hit enter, that does nothing. You have to move it up to 1st before saving and exiting.

In some Bios, you have to highlight the dvd drive then use the + or - keys to change it to 1st but it doesn`t move in the list, either way you have to make it 1st before saving and exiting. You are not doing that before you save and exit. Keep trying.

 

[phenix]

When I click on the CD line the ONLY thing that highlights is "Press xxx".
Can't remember the 2nd word. I am doing this from memory in my home.
I am not able to move the Cd line anywhere.

 

[AddRAM]

Then you will have to sit in front of the pc and work on it

 

[phenix]

Thanks much.
Obviously you think there is nothing wrong with the Dell windows 7 home
premium BIOS..
Therefor I have to be doing something wrong.
Means I will have to go back there and lose more face.
But that's life.......

 

[gregrocker]

This is why its best to use the F12 one-time BIOS boot menu key. What happens when you choose CD drive on F12 menu?

If media won't boot but boots in other PC's then reset the Dell BIOS to defaults, after taking note of the SATA controller setting (IDE, AHCI, or SATA?). Save and exit. Try f12 again.

If that fails run the Dell Diagnostics from F12. There may be two ways to do this, one listed as Diagnostics and the another fuller suite listed as Utility Partition. You want everything so it tests the condition of the OD.

Clonezilla should have a flash stick alternative to try. If not try another imaging option like Win7 for which you can use the Win7 installation DVD or its flash stick alternative, which can be created from the links in Windows 7 USB-DVD Download Tool.
You can also create the image or backup from Windows:
Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup
Backup User and System Files