external CD/DVD drive not recognized in BIOS

#1 Amanik041

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Posted 15 July 2009 - 06:13 PM

hey, i have a huge problem :thumbsup:

i tried installing vista on an old laptop, and now i cant access it because the hard drive can't support vista. whenever i try and turn it on it says "Disk error, press ctrl alt del to restart".
So i'm trying to reinstall windows xp on there, but the laptop's cd drive is broken. So i bought an external CD drive, and connected it to the laptop, and tried booting it from there, but BIOS didn't sense it. is there anything i can do to make BIOS recognize the USB external CD drive?

#2 hamluis

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Posted 15 July 2009 - 06:19 PM

Check your BIOS settings...looking for something that says "legacy USB support" or something similar. If you find it, enable it and then try it.

Louis

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#3 Amanik041

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Posted 15 July 2009 - 07:20 PM

i was only able to find "SATA native support", but that's it. it's sensed USB hard drives before, so this is a little strange

#4 hamluis

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Posted 15 July 2009 - 08:11 PM

A USB hard drive...which is accessed from within XP, after XP loads...is not the same as a USB floppy drive, from which you are trying to boot into XP.

The drivers (which are necessary for the system to communicate with the drive) for a USB hard drive are loaded when XP boots.

The drivers for your USB optical drive...won't load until XP boots...so you cannot use the USB drive to boot into XP (it's a catch-22)...unless you have a BIOS that allows USB devices to boot first. You don't seem to have that.

FWIW: Because the drive is connected by USB, it will never appear in the system BIOS. It would appear there only if it was connected directly to the motherboard, same as your hard drive.

Louis

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#5 Amanik041

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Posted 15 July 2009 - 10:47 PM

aight. thanks very much for your help. is it possible for me to connect another laptop or tower computer's cd/dvd drive to the laptop and use it that way? what are some compatability issues regarding cd drives that i should watch out for?

#6 hamluis

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Posted 16 July 2009 - 10:20 AM

I don't know much about laptops...so I can't speak about compatibility of replaceent drives.

Whatever model the laptop is...there should be a manual which may indicate prospective problems with replacing the drive.

Someone else will probably be able to give you better suggestions than I.

Manufacturere and model of the laptop?

Louis

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