Dell Dim 4700: Can't Boot to CD

Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr. I
would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard drive.
However, every time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press F1 to
retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive was set
to boot first, and also reset default settings in System Set-up. Still, no
CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower. I
also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is appreciated.
Thanks!

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...
Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device
Mgr. I would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the
hard drive. However, every time I boot up, it says device not
recognized (press F1 to retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and
made sure the CD drive was set to boot first, and also reset default
settings in System Set-up. Still, no CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the
tower. I also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no
luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is
appreciated. Thanks!

You state the optical drives are recognized in Windows, but you don't
say if they work. Can you read a data CD in Windows? Can you play an
audio CD?
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+
http://dts-l.net/

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...
Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr.
I would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard
drive. However, every time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press
F1 to retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive
was set to boot first, and also reset default settings in System Set-up.
Still, no CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower.
I also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

This suggests either:
1. The CD is defective (or lacks boot code).
2. Both CD and DVD drives are defective (or require unavailable drivers:
unlikely for a Dimension 4700.)
Case 2 (two drives failing simultaneously) is less probable than #1.
You can test the CD by trying to boot another PC from it.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)

Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable only, no
power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but won't boot to
it, either!


"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...

Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr. I
would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard drive.
However, every time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press F1 to
retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive was set
to boot first, and also reset default settings in System Set-up. Still, no
CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower. I
also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is appreciated.
Thanks!

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
...
Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable only,
no power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but won't boot
to it, either!


"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...

Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr.
I
would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard drive.
However, every time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press F1 to
retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive was
set
to boot first, and also reset default settings in System Set-up. Still,
no
CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower.
I
also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is
appreciated.
Thanks!

I'm here using a MSI 848P Neo-S (MS-6788) motherboard without SATA enabled
at all (I think?). This motherboard will only boot to a cd when in some
strange yet to be completely determined manner if IDE drives have devices
attached in specific manner. From memory and what works now, must have hard
disk on IDE 1 primary channel A and two dvd drives on IDE 2. It'll then use
the primary on IDE 2 to boot. Without the second dvd drive (possibly another
hard disk might also work) in slave IDE 2, it'll not recognize cd as
bootable!!!??? It'll also not boot to cd if there's only one hard disk and
one dvd drive regardless of configuration. I have no idea why and there
doesn't appear to be any firmware update. System does boot to USB without
problem thank god though.

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
...
Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable
only, no power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but
won't boot to it, either!

Are you going to answer the questions I asked in my response to you over
10 hours ago?
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+
http://dts-l.net/

My apology, Glen. When I originally mentioned that both drives were
recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr, I assumed it was implied that they
were able to both read data and play discs.
My mistake.

"glee" wrote in message ...

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
...
Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable only,
no power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but won't boot
to it, either!

Are you going to answer the questions I asked in my response to you over
10 hours ago?
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+
http://dts-l.net/

Dell Christopher wrote:
My apology, Glen. When I originally mentioned that both drives were
recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr, I assumed it was implied that
they were able to both read data and play discs.
My mistake.

"glee" wrote in message ...

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
...
Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable
only, no power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but
won't boot to it, either!

Are you going to answer the questions I asked in my response to you over
10 hours ago?
Did you try pushing the F12 key during the BIOS display when you first
turn the PC on?

Jim

Do the following fix. Your Lower and Upper filters are messed up

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116
--
Peter
Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
http://www.microsoft.com/protect


"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...
Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr. I would
like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard drive. However, every
time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press F1 to retry, F2 for set-up).
I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive was set to boot first, and also reset
default settings in System Set-up. Still, no CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower. I also
uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is appreciated.
Thanks!

Dell Christopher wrote:
Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device
Mgr. I would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the
hard drive. However, every time I boot up, it says device not
recognized (press F1 to retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and
made sure the CD drive was set to boot first, and also reset default
settings in System Set-up. Still, no CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the
tower. I also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still
no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is
appreciated. Thanks!

I know someone else with the same problem. She has a mini tower from
Dell. Had one drive that nothing would open in. Finally something else went
on it, it was still under the year guarantee, someone came from Dell and
replaced the hd and put in a new burner drive. She didn't know anything
about checking and fixing it herself, so no answers. Just that it was
guaranteed and Dell fixed it. Now she got a laptop from them for her
daughter, and after one day nothing will come on (OS won't load) They are
waiting for Dell to send someone back...
I know this isn't an answer for you.
I assume you have tried a cleaning CD? And/or cleaning the CDs/DVDs you
are trying to open.

To enable a PC to boot from a CD-ROM (cd/cdr/cd-wr/dvd/dvd-r/dvd-wr) drive,
firstly, on 99% of systems, the drive must be an internal one, attached to
either the primary or secondary IDE controller - external USB drives will
work but you will not be able to boot from them.

Secondly, you may have to enable the drive as a boot device in the BIOS
setup program - usually accessed by pressing a key (possibly F2, F10, F12,
DEL or ESC ) during the very first stages of the boot-up process and before
the "Windows is loading..." splash-screen appears.

Once in the BIOS setup program, you will need to navigate to the setting
for "boot device priority" or "boot device order" (or something similar)
and set the cd-rom as the first boot device.

If the device is bootable (i.e. compatible with your system as a boot
device) it will be listed in the this list of bootable devices when
configuring the boot-order.

Also, look around in the same area of settings in the BIOS, while you are
there, to make sure there are no other settings, peculiar to your system,
that need to be enabled in order to boot from a cd-rom. Nearly all BIOSes
are slightly different, so just check around to see if there are any
special settings unique to yours.

Lastly, on some BIOSes made in the last ten years, there's a feature you
can enable to be able to override the boot-device sequence that has been
specified in the BIOS by pressing a key (F12 on my own system). Pressing
the [F12] key brings up a menu listing all bootable drives so you can
choose which to boot from - this time only - no matter what order they were
placed in the BIOS.

If this feature is available on your system, it can be enabled / disabled
from the BIOS settings program. It's a setting called "Enable Boot Menu"
on my system.

Save the BIOS settings by selecting "Save settings and Exit" on quitting
the BIOS program.

To test-boot your cd-rom, place a *bootable* cd-rom in the tray and "hard"
or "cold" -boot (this means to boot from a "power-off" state - switch the
PC off at the wall to make sure it's a cold-boot). If necessary, press the
[F12] key to initiate the "boot-menu" (if available) and choose the
"cd-rom" from the list.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)




"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...
My apology, Glen. When I originally mentioned that both drives were
recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr, I assumed it was implied that
they were able to both read data and play discs.
My mistake.

"glee" wrote in message ...

"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
...
Well, I just went out and bought a Memorex external DVD (USB cable only,
no power cord included). It recognizes that drive as well but won't
boot to it, either!

Are you going to answer the questions I asked in my response to you over
10 hours ago?
--
Glen Ventura
MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
CompTIA A+
http://dts-l.net/

Peter Foldes wrote:

Do the following fix. Your Lower and Upper filters are messed up

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/982116

The KB article doesn't really explain just what these settings are for
and sometimes it helps to know why you are making the changes.

Upper filters: Drivers that handle or filter device access requests from
an application before passing them onto the main device driver.

Lower filters: Drivers that handle or fitler device access requests from
the main device driver before passing them to the kernel driver.

Deleting the upper/lower filters make get working devices that weren't
working before. Some are required. Some are optional used as an
alternative device access method.

Here's some more info: http://www.cdr-zone.com/forum/about4719.html. I
haven't used the tool listed here but just mention this article for the
info it provides on what types of filters are involved.

Rather than use a 3rd party utility to list the filters, you can go into
Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) and look at the properties for the optical
drives (CD/DVD) and go under the Details tab. In the properties
drop-down listbox, select Device Upper/Lower Filters and Class
Upper/Lower Filters. Many applications, like burning software, adds
entries to these lists. Deleting these registry items may fix the
problem but can then lead to breaking the applications that rely on
these filters. The problem is often incompatible filters in a mix of
them. You want to delete the problematic filter (and probably uninstall
the software) under these registry keys and not everything under them.
Deleting the entire entry could mean you'll have to reinstall all the
software for them (but some are automatically installed with Windows and
not items in Add/Remove Programs that you can uninstall and then
reinstall). For example, deleting the imapi filter means losing the CD
burning feature in Windows XP, and deleting the redbook filter means not
being able to read some CDs. Deleting the registry entries can cause
more problems than it fixes.

After writing the above, I tried searching around on upper/lower filters
to see how to properly troubleshoot them. Alas, most articles just have
you blast away the entire list of filters and hope you get a working
setup despite now the software that relies on those filters won't
function properly anymore. Most users suggesting a fix haven't a clue
as to what this list of filters are for. They just recount what someone
else said which was to do a blanket delete of all the filters.
Eventually I found an article that does give some additional info:
http://djlizard.net/2007/04/30/230/. There may be other truly helpful
articles but I wasn't that interested in finding them. Microsoft's
Fix-It KB articles are of no help and may fix the problem while causing
more problems later. They seem to just do the blanket registry delete
as per the description on how to manually perform the fix.

It is interesting to note that this article mentions why doing a system
restore can result in breaking your system rather than restoring it.
System Restore is not the panacea users hoped it would be. Not only is
it not an imaging backup scheme to restore your partition back to a
prior state, it can result in a mixed state that breaks functionality.

Dell Christopher wrote:
Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device
Mgr. I would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the
hard drive. However, every time I boot up, it says device not
recognized (press F1 to retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and
made sure the CD drive was set to boot first, and also reset default
settings in System Set-up. Still, no CD drive recognized.

I haven't been following this thread, but possibly another option (at least
with some Dells) is to boot up and use Dell's built in system restore
partition, which restores the computer to its factory delivered setup (but
you'd loose everything installed since on your HD). For my Dell I think it
was invoked by Ctrl-F11 at bootup. (I only mention this since you said
you're willing to go the point of reformatting your system HD anyway, and
you wouldn't have to use the CD drive for this, IF your Dell has that system
restore partition on the HD).

I would like to add that, elsewhere in this thread, contributors have been
laying "red herrings" on you by going on about; "Upper and Lower Filters"
..... don't be distracted, it cannot be anything to do with this, as even
given such a conflict which might render the drive unusable in Windows
would still not have any effect, one way or another, regarding the ability
of the system to use it as a boot device.

Also, the suggestions made by "glee" (to make double-sure the drive is
fully functioning) and by "Carrie" (along the same lines, plus asking if
the particular cd-rom is free of dirt & grease) make much more sense than
trying to find the cause of the problem in an Operating System that, at the
time of booting, is not even being used.

And to reiterate, my own suggestion[s] - to consult your BIOS settings
[thoroughly] to see that all is as it should be...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London. :-)

Many thanks for all the suggestions. Unfortunately, I was still not able to
resolve the problem, so I will do my best to work with the computer as is.
Fortunately, the CD and DVD drives function fine in Normal mode, and that's
just gonna have to do!

Thanks again!


"Dell Christopher" wrote in message
m...

Dell Dimension 4700, WinXP Pro

Both the CD and DVD drives are recognized in My Computer and Device Mgr. I
would like to boot to the Dell WinXP CD so I can reformat the hard drive.
However, every time I boot up, it says device not recognized (press F1 to
retry, F2 for set-up). I went to set-up and made sure the CD drive was set
to boot first, and also reset default settings in System Set-up. Still, no
CD drive recognized.

I've checked to make sure both device cables are secure inside the tower. I
also uninstalled/reinstalled both in Device Mgr and still no luck.

Any suggestions as to what the problem might be? All input is appreciated.
Thanks!