How Does The Cd Drive Work?

How Does The Cd Drive Work? Where do its functions come from? Curious again

#1 tekchallenged

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Posted 06 June 2007 - 08:33 PM

I have just managed to install a new OS (Win2000) on a brand new HDD in a notebook. I've not installed anything since floppies. The OS came with an installation cd. After a bit of messing around, I got it installed from boot floppies which I found instructions on-line how to get from the cd. My question is this - how does the cd drive work and what makes it autorun and "do its thing?" Should I have been able to get the installation to work from the cd? If so, how? If my desktop XP hard disk were to die and needed a new HDD, would I have to get it going from floppies too? (I've only got a Dell recovery disk for the desktop).

Feel free to assume that I won't know what you are talking about...

#2 Commander Gman

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Posted 06 June 2007 - 08:55 PM

Well i don't really quite understand your question
But i understand one thing:
Autorun is a process when you insert a CD in the CD-ROM,the contents of the CD shows up automatically
(you'll see windows explorer open up in a window)
From here on,you can go to the files in the CD that you have and access them
So you don't have to go to MyComputer>right click on the CD in the CD-ROM drive and select open
which will really save you time :thumbsup:

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#3 garmanma

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Posted 06 June 2007 - 09:05 PM

tekchallenged, on Jun 6 2007, 09:33 PM, said:

To install an OS from a CD you must change the boot order in the BIOS. In your case, the floppy drive is probably listed as first. You have to change it so the CD ROM drive is the first boot device. With that done, you save changes and reboot with the OS disc in the drive and it should automatically start to load
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#4 tekchallenged

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Posted 06 June 2007 - 09:32 PM

garmanma, on Jun 7 2007, 10:05 AM, said:

In your case, the floppy drive is probably listed as first.

Thanks, I looked at that - "optical disk" is the first in the boot order, then USB cd-rom, then USB floppy and so on.

Commander Gman

Quote

(you'll see windows explorer open up in a window)

There's no windows explorer - there's no windows until it's installed and (as far as I know :thumbsup:

) there's nothing on the HDD. Anything that's working is working from the BIOS or something.....

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