Trying to reformat but comp wont read drive

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Hello everyone,

I am trying to reformat my system, but when I shut it down my dvd drive wont start up, but it starts up when Im on the deskstop hence why I cant reformat.

I use windows xp, I have 2 dvdr LG drives. One can read cd(sometimes), so i use the new one, but doesnt start up on the restart level.

Does anybody have any idea on whats going on here?. Thanks in advance.
 
Hi Firstone and welcome to the TechSpot Forum :wave:

Bootable devices such as DVD's and CDRoms dont always work as a bootable drive if they dont conform to the ATAPI standard.

Tips;

Make sure you BIOS is set correctly and that the DVD drive is set to be the first bootable device.

Unplug and other IDE device such as Hard Drives from the PC then..

Connect just one DVD unit to the secondary IDE channel, the jumpers on some need to be set to "Master" on others I have found they wont work as a bootable drive unless set to "Slave" or "Cable Select", its a bit of trial and error.

If after exhausting all combinations then you have a non ATAPI drive and it wont work full stop, and you will have to go borrow one.

:Sidenote:
We just found out that some "Sony" drives wont work for us as a USB bootable device when booting from a BIOS where USB device is set as the first bootable device, yet work find as an IDE device.



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Its not working... Is it possible to just install the windows xp right on to my hardrive and just delete the old version? or do i need to go through reformatting?
 
First, can you explain the reason you want to re-install Windows XP? Then I can advise you as to whether or not you need to reformat as there is more than one re-installation method.

As for your CD/DVD drive, BIOS always allows for at least one CD/DVD drive to be usable. Check for a message from BIOS as it starts up saying if it detected the DVD drive. If not, go into BIOS and check the settings for the DVD drives and also check the boot sequence to see if it's listed.
 
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