can't set bios to boot from CD rom drive

[Raen]

Im new at this forum posting so hope ppl will be patient with me.
I am trying to format my C drive and reinstall Windows XP home edition.
I have an Intel D850GB motherboard and have have looked at the instructions on how to boot from CD at startup but its not working ..... the comp just goes ahead into Windows XP as it does normally.
The instructions I used were as follows:
- as the comp starts I pressed F2 which entered Setup no problem.
- I went to the Boot tab and down to boot priority and pressed ENTER.
- there were 3 devices listed there as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd as follows:
1st boot dev. removable dev
2nd boot dev. hard drive
3rd boot dev. ATAPI CD-ROM
- as the instructions said on that page, I selected the ATAPI CD-ROM option and then
pressed ENTER to set it as my first boot priority and then F10 to save the changes
and exit SETUP (this seemed to work bc it asked me if i wanted to save the changes
and I made sure i selected YES)
- I had the Windows XP CD in the CD-ROM drive ready and when the comp restarted
it SHOULD have said "Press any key to boot from CD" but nothing out of the ordinary
happened .... it just started going into Windows as usual.
I should add that I have Windows 98SE installed first and the Windows XP is an upgrade ... dont know if that matters or not .......
Any help would be much appreciated .
Thanx Raen

[Mobo]

Is the change to the bios staying after you set it ? What about trying manual setup from " My computer" ?

[Raen]

Hi Mobo: Thanx for answering my post ..... but I'm afraid I don't know how to do a manual start from "My Computer" ..... sorry .... I know a bit bout comps but certainly not as much as many. If you can give me instructions bout how to do that, it would be much appreciated!! Thank you again!! raen

[Mobo]

With the cd in the drive. Click on " My Computer"

Then double click on the cdrom drive that contains the xp disk and setup should start.

[Raen]

Well .... I feel kind of stupid . Yes, i DO know how to start a CD manually Mobo as you explained, however, I've been referring to some instructions on how to format the HD and install a fresh operating system (taken from lifehacker.com). In THESE instructions the advice was as follows:

"This part is important: do NOT run the Windows Installation from Windows itself. Shut down first and then boot up the machine from CD. The reason why booting from CD is important is because we're going to delete the C: drive partition where Windows is installed and re-format it. You can't do this if Windows booted from C:, because it can't delete the partition from which it is running."

So this is why I'm intent on getting the comp to boot from the CD. The person writing the article (Gina Trapani : Geek to Live) was lucky enough to have a computer which displayed a message as it was booting "to boot from CD press F12." Unfortunately, I have not noticed such a handy little message lol.

Also, in a past post of yours, you asked if the priority order (i.e. boot from CD first) remained after i supposedly set it. I would say NO because each time I have gone back into Setup using F2 as the system boots, it is always the same. I really don't know what I am doing wrong here as I mentioned before it does ask if I want to "save the changes" and exit and I have definitely said YES to that without any change.

Any other ideas or suggestions? Thanx Raen.

[Mobo]

Initiate the install as I said then at some point it will have you verify that the upgrade is lewgit by prompting you to insert the 98 cdrom as the following image shows:




Then at the install location you will see the option to delete the exisating partition:




Select the option to delete the partition. then create a new one as well.


It will then prompt to format the partition as :


Do so with ntfs as shown above.

The rest is a piece of cake.

[Raen]

Once again Mobo, thanx for replying to my post.
Being obsessive as I am, I have read your instructions completely and carefully and am ALMOST ready to take the plunge and actually TRY it lol.
I have only ONE more question Mobo .... sorry .... I'm wondering if during this process there is also a way to wipe and reformat my drive D? I have only one HD but it's divided into 2 partitions .... a quite small C drive which houses my Windows and some other stuff and the D drive which has most of my programs. I guess I'm hoping to get rid of as much crud as possible during this process and I have no problem reinstalling my programs.
If there is no easy way to do the D drive, it's OK .... I'll just go ahead with doing C and see if my system is more stable after that.
Thank you once again for your help Mobo. I do appreciate it. Raen

[gannz]

ill look into this

[Isitme]

Probably too late, but when you get to the middle screen in MoBo's post above you will be shown all the partitions on the drive. IE C and D. Simply choose to delete them and it will become one block of unallocated space which you can then select for the installation.