Why can I not boot off non-Windows CD or DVD with Windows 7 installed?

I've looked at:

http://www.superuser.com/questions/22952/installing-windows-7-on-a-dual-boot-machine

and

http://www.superuser.com/questions/16098/how-can-i-get-my-ubuntu-boot-manager-back-after-windows-7-install

The bottom line is, after a Windows 7 install, the only way I could get the Ubuntu LiveCD (or FreeBSD, or Debian, or Ultimate Boot CD) to boot, was to unplug the SATA cable on the Windows partition (I was lucky to have more than one HDD).

Why?

EDIT (2009-10-20):

The issue is purely academic now, since I used my "unplug drive" workaround last month. I've put a bounty on this because I want to know for my own benefit, and unplugging a drive is not a feasible solution. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this question. I value your input.

user3463

Posted 2009-09-09T14:16:17.157

Reputation:

Added the links for you. Good luck. – th3dude – 2009-10-20T12:29:11.880

Thanks - this was before I could add more than one link :) – None – 2009-10-20T19:39:26.800

When you say "with Windows 7 installed" - does this mean you used to be able to do it with Vista/XP, and now with Win7 installed you can't? As is mentioned in several answers below, the boot device decision is made in the BIOS, long before Windows is even loaded, and I am doubtful it is Win7's fault. – Jared Harley – 2009-10-25T17:59:44.273

Hi Jared. That's exactly right - I was able to boot between Windows 2008 Server, Ubuntu and FreeBSD. Windows 7 RC came along, and the events as played out above and below occurred. – None – 2009-10-25T21:10:12.640

Answers

When you have more then one hard drive, cdrom, etc you only get so many choices to boot from even if you select them properly in the linked image. Make sure the drive you want to boot from is on the top when in the cdrom/hard drive menu.

You can have the First Boot Device CDROM but then have two CDROMs under the boot menu and it's choosing your bluray instead of your DVDRW or however you may have it set up. Unplugging it was probably what brought the correct one to the top.

user10547

Posted 2009-09-09T14:16:17.157

Reputation: 1 089

Thanks for the suggestion, but I checked that too. I spent hours messing with this. – None – 2009-09-09T15:18:07.100

Interesting then make sure to let everyone know once you figure it out. – user10547 – 2009-09-09T22:33:26.193

I plan to, believe me :). As I commented lower down in the page, this is probably a conflict between the BIOS and the Windows 7 boot sector. I will look for another BIOS update, but I did one recently when this problem first appeared. Thanks for your suggestions so far. – None – 2009-09-11T11:46:30.790

1The BIOS loads well before any part of Windows 7 does. I'd double check the boot priority again and also get a new Ubuntu CD. You may just have a bad burn. – MDMarra – 2009-10-20T12:15:33.167

1Although off topic .. I had a similar problem with XP this week. I selected boot from USB device, but it kept booting from the Hard Drive, even after I disabled the Hard drive boot in the BIOS. The problem for me was that there was another (un-bootable) hard drive on a USB port. The boot system seemed to see that, fail to boot, and then go for the internal hard drive regardless. Removing that drive and only having a single device on USB solved my problem – Peter M – 2009-10-20T20:36:21.163

@MarkM - as I pointed out in OP and various comments, I used more than just Ubuntu, including FreeBSD, Debian, Ultimate Boot CD, as well as Knoppix on a USB drive. – None – 2009-10-22T08:50:31.180

@Peter - that sounds vaguely similar to the behaviour I experienced. I had three hard drives and one DVD drive. Windows 7 was on one drive, Ubuntu was on another, and the third was non-bootable. It might be that the third drive was first in the boot order and it skipped straight to the Windows 7 drive. Interesting. – None – 2009-10-22T08:53:03.780

@Peter - move your comment into an answer, and I'll be willing to accept it. You'll win a bounty, too. – None – 2009-10-22T08:54:19.643

Erm... feel a little bit silly to ask this question, but have you set your optical drive (DVD drive) to be the first device in your PC's boot priority? In short, have you set or selected your optical drive with the Ubuntu CD to be the first to boot?

Find the boot priority settings in your BIOS.

alt text

caliban

Posted 2009-09-09T14:16:17.157

Reputation: 18 979

1Yes, I did that :). There's no such thing as a silly question. – None – 2009-09-09T14:46:46.950

@Randolph Potter : Okay great - by the way, some SATA optical drives have issues booting if they are not connected to the first two SATA ports. Did you try switching the optical drive SATA port to the first port (check your mobo manual), and then try again? – caliban – 2009-09-09T15:05:00.710

The optical drive is IDE. The motherboard is an Intel P35. – None – 2009-09-09T15:15:07.027

Ah okay, now is your com's SATA set to AHCI? or is it "Compatible" or something? Try changing this setting to see if it works? – caliban – 2009-09-09T15:35:34.100

It is set to AHCI. I tried changing to the compatible mode and that made no difference either. I even tried sorting the order of the three SATA drives and that didn't help. – None – 2009-09-09T16:21:51.433

Okay, this is by far a loooong shot. is your power supply big enough to power all components in your PC?? Unstable power might lead to the optical drive not being able to spin up at boot time fast enough to process the CD, and when you remove the SATA drive, it gains enough power again. Try removing other drives? – caliban – 2009-09-09T16:48:43.830

Good question, and sorry this reply is so late. I bought the biggest PSU I could find when I specced the box, and before Windows 7 was installed, all the hardware worked as expected. If I think about this logically, it's probably a bug in the BIOS that doesn't like Win7 boot sectors, or something like that. – None – 2009-09-11T11:44:18.360

@Randolph Potter : Okay, I recalled a case where a similar situation happened with yours - only that it was Windows XP SP2. Spent the whole afternoon, and finally switching the graphics card to another one allows it to boot. Try switching out the graphics card or any PCI/PCI-E cards. – caliban – 2009-09-11T13:23:57.380

Late response, and I've put a bounty on this now, but the graphics card switch didn't make a difference. – None – 2009-10-20T19:33:12.633

Have you tried booting using a USB-based storage device ? You can take almost any .ISO file and set it to make a USB device bootable with it. UNETBOOTIN, which can run under both Windows and Linux can take a .ISO file of any Linux distribution and make your USB storage device bootable with this ISO file, just as if you were booting off a CDROM. If you cannot boot off a CDROM, this may be an alternative solution.

jfmessier

Posted 2009-09-09T14:16:17.157

Reputation: 2 530

Good suggestion, but it didn't work. I tried it with the Ultimate Boot CD, as well as a Knoppix USB stick. – None – 2009-10-20T19:34:22.677

This is very odd though as the BIOS settings override any OS settings. Windows 7 is not even loaded at the point where the BIOS selects from which medium to load the desired OS from.

I do understand that (all?) Windows versions have always destroyed any bootloader e.g. LILO or GRUB and replaced it with its own. In this case I always installed first Windows and then another OS if needed.

In your case though, you are trying to boot from a CD or DVD which really should be invoked prior to Windows 7 having anything to say.

I suggest you edit the BIOS setting and simply set CD/DVD as the first and only boot option. Then disable the rest (2nd,3rd,4th, etc) boot options. That setting will work fine as a HD is really not required for the system to boot (from a CD/DVD).

If anything else fails, are you sure the media is not corrupted?

Try to download another distribution to see if that also fails.
Try to use a different writer.

mr-euro

Posted 2009-09-09T14:16:17.157

Reputation: 461

I did all you suggested last month, and none of them worked. I even replaced the DVD writer. The media, as I've pointed out, was several different types, including Ubuntu, FreeBSD, Debian (and Knoppix on a USB stick). – None – 2009-10-25T21:08:14.190

You may have another hardware issue. I once had a similar issue with only the CD drives not working properly. It was a faulty motherboard (IDE controller) even though no other issues were experienced on the box. – mr-euro – 2009-10-26T07:51:38.000