Computer won't boot from a bootable DVD

Question

My friend gave me his old computer that used to have WinXP on it. I'm trying to load Win7 on it and I thought there was something wrong because it wouldn't boot off a bootable disc, even though I setup the BIOS boot settings properly (I've done this sort of thing a million times).

However, this closely related post helped me realize that I can boot off a bootable CD (WinXP), just not a DVD (Win7)

Computer won’t boot from CD/DVD drive

That might be the answer to my question, however, this motherboard is still pretty current technology. It's a good quality Gigabyte board, and judging from this product page, it came out in 2004.

If I can't figure out a solution to my DVD boot problem, I'll have to try something like this:

Boot and Install Windows from a USB thumb drive

I guess it's possible that this motherboard doesn't allow booting from a DVD, but I still think that I might be missing something. It wouldn't be the DVD rom drive would it? I did try another drive and had the same results. However, I didn't try booting a DVD in the computer that the other test drive came out of, I'll do that later today.

Any other advice? Thanks.

Answer 1

"I've found that the number one reason a bootable disc won't boot is because BIOS is not configured to check the CD/DVD drive first.

Do you have more than one CD or DVD drive? Your computer probably only allows for one of your disc drives to be booted from. Insert the bootable CD or DVD in the other drive and restart your computer.

Clean the CD or DVD. If the disc is old, as are many Windows Setup CDs and DVDs by the time they're needed, clean it. A clean disc could make all the difference.

Burn a new CD/DVD. If the DVD or CD is one you created yourself, like from an ISO file, then burn it again. The disc may have errors on it that reburning could correct. I've had this happen to me more than once."

From http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootcddvd.htm

Answer 2

That CD drive could be faulty. Try another drive; you did mention it was an old computer. Failing that, clean the CD.

Answer 3

Check to see if the drive itself is functioning correctly. Create a copy of Hiren's Boon Disc and run a test to make sure the drive is working. If it is, there may be a problem with the DVD itself.

Like you said, there's a few other ways you can boot besides using a DVD. I'd go with USB Drive myself.

Edit - Sorry, forgot the link:

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd