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PC won't boot from dvd?

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by sanjarchy 1 view

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I started re-installing WINDOWS XP, formatted my hard drive, and half way through the installation a message came up, saying that the cd is corrupted and the installation process can't proceed. I restarted the PC, and tried to install a copy of WINDOWS 7, but the PC doesn't even see any files on that cd. I got a message that it can't boot from cd - code 5. Afterwards, i tried installing from a flash drive, from three other cd's with windows 7 and xp, and nothing worked. Any suggestions?

9 replies

by oh smeg

Firstly 7 Comes on a DVD not a CD so if there isn't a DVD Drive or the DVD Drive has had a DVD Left in it for extended periods of time the DVD Side of the drive could be faulty.

However most likely with errors like this particularly if they keep throwing up different error messages is that you have Failing RAM, Mismatched RAM or some other RAM problem. You can test the RAM with something like MemTest or whatever you like but I've seen cases where it passes but stops Windows from installing.

When I hit systems like that I reduce the system to 1 RAM Module install Windows and then refit any removed RAM after the system is loaded. Apparently the Windows Installer is far more susceptible to RAM Problems than Windows itself so you need to be careful when installing Windows. ;)

Col

by sanjarchy

I know windows 7 comes on a DVD, I was just typing in a hurry.
I've tried removing RAM, switching them, using them separately, but I still get the same result. The XP system I have partially installed boots up from the hard drive, and stops at the same place it stops every time, asking for a location to continue the installation from. It's like the computer is refusing to do anything else but continue with the installation it already started.
I've tried to install from a flash drive, but I'm not sure if I'm specifying the correct location. What stands for the flash drive in the boot menu, USB-HDD, or something else?

by oh smeg

Well if that's the case then wipe the HDD with something like Boot & Nuke

http://www.dban .org/

or Kill Disc

http://www.killdisk .com/downloadfree.htm
[i]remember remove the space from between the [b]domain name[/b] and the [b].whatever[/b] for a working link.[/i]

You can also test the RAM with the Ultimate Boot CD available free here

http://www.ultimatebootcd .com/download.html

With Kill Disc you want the Dos Version and the download link for The Ultimate Boot CD is about half way down the page everything listed here is free to download so if you are asked for money you have chosen the wrong link or clicked on an add. ;)

Col

by banny33

check, if your pc is set to ahci mode in bios if it is, turn it to sata

by amiltonw

Sounds like you are not sure of how to boot from flash drive . I suspect your optical drive is faulty and your USB is not bootable. Outline the steps you took to create the USB boot disk and how you attempted to boot from it .

by pawandev

First of all, are you able to see the contents of the DVD on other computer? If Yes, then go to next step,
Preparing the bootable USB (You would require another machine running Win 7 to prepare bootable win 7 USB.
on the working win 7 machine open command prompt type following command while your USB drive is plugged to the computer
DISKPART and hit enter(you would need USB stick with minimum 8 GB memory)
LIST DISK and hit enter.
Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter.
SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS
(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN
EXIT
Once you complete these steps copy the contents of win 7 DVD on to the USB stick.
Now you can boot the computer with this USB.

by yeshwanth560

Problem might with the CD. Sometimes the CD if have scratches causes this problem.
Try with another cd it should work.

by dave51647

I had problems making a boot-able CD using Nero and the version I was using did not correctly make the disk, thus I got cd - code 5. The only ref on the web I found at the time was for a Mac with similar problems. I have not been able to locate any ref

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