Hello,
She is not trying to boot from the CD-ROM, so that is not the issue.
I hope you tried multiple CD's, and this is not just one failing... in other words, you tried 5 CD-ROMS, some made at the store, and determined a failure...
Heidi, first thing you will need to do is reboot your system. Depending on your BIOS settings, you may or may not see the system configuration printed out. This will appear as white text on a black screen. You may see memory counting up as the system checks your memory.
Now, if you have a newer computer that has the damn company logo "Dell, Compaq, Intel" on it instead, you will need to go into your BIOS and inspect it. WIthout knowing your exact machine details, I cannot say too much more here.
What are you looking for?
You need to see if the BIOS detects your CD-ROM drive first. It will either show up as some IDE device, or unlikely, yet possibly, a SCSI device. You need to ensure that the BIOS sees something else besides the hard drive.
If the BIOS detects a CD-ROM, then the next thing to do is load Windows. Look in the Device Manager and see if the CD-ROM driver has a problem.
Also, listen to the CD-ROM drive. Does it sound any differently than when you used it before?
Christian
Reputation Points: 121
Solved Threads: 57
Posting Virtuoso
Offline 1,629 posts
since Mar 2004