PC won't boot from CD and USB

[Rifero]

Hey all,

I'm not sure if this is the correct forum section, but here goes;

I'm at work today and during a Linux installation the power went down so now the installation is corrupted.
This results in a unbootable system. I have Linux bootable DVD and USB device, they work fine on all other PC's.
This one PC is pretty old.

Problem is I can't boot from CD or USB.

Bios is Asus AwardBIOS P4PE-X/TE ACPI Revision 1006 01/05/2003.

My main question is; how can I make it so that it will boot from CD or USB?
Whenever I set primary master as CD-rom, it says:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

All help will be greatly appreciated.

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

If it was in the process of installing when the computer was shut off then you will have to reformat the hard drive.

 

[Rifero]

How do I do that? It doesn't detect any CD or USB. I have a CD with killdisk but it's no use because I can't start it.

 

[AnonymousSurfer]

If like you said it accepted the CD before the power outage and now it doesn't, it's because the hard drive is corrupted. You can reformat the drive by hooking it up to another computer, right clicking on the hard drive after it is accepted by the OS (assuming your using windows 7 on the other computer), right click on it and select Format. There are numerous tutorials on google for reformatting a hard drive.

 

[Trillionsin]

Whether the hard drive is corrupt or not, you should still be able to boot from a bootable CD/DVD/USB Drive.

You could try what AnonymousSurfer posted, and post results. But I'm guessing that you've tried booting a few times (testing it multiple times) and not getting anything to boot from CD. Try to reset the BIOS, restore to defaults, even possibly remove the CMOS batter for a minute, and then go into the BIOS and change the option to boot from your CD/DVD drive first. Post back with results.

 

[desb48]

Trying to get pics of sisters vista hard drive with usb external case on my laptop running wins 7 recognises generic usb case but not connect ing with hard drive inside , I am sure hard drive is corrupt is ther any way to save stuff please.

 

[Trillionsin]

Trying to get pics of sisters vista hard drive with usb external case on my laptop running wins 7 recognises generic usb case but not connect ing with hard drive inside , I am sure hard drive is corrupt is ther any way to save stuff please.

You'll want to start your own thread.

short answer: probably not

 

[desb48]

Ok thanks for that

 

[morawski64]

I looked up your motherboard, pressing Delete should get you into the BIOS, see if you changed your boot order, if you didn't have an OS before you tried to install Linux, it would make sense that skipped the hard drive and went straight to your disk, but now that there is a boot manager for linux, perhaps it's trying to boot and won't progress to the dvd or usb? Make sure the hard drive is third in the list (CD/DVD->USB->HDD) and try to reboot. If that doesn't work, just disconnect the hard drive entirely so it isn't recognized and see if it can even boot to your CD or USB

 

[Benmar]

Maybe you have a faulty motherboard...