Restore my PC to factory spec...

[paulbradley]

I'm trying to restore my PC to the factory spec. I have 2 restore CDs and no floppys. The cd drive on my PC does function correctly as it has been uninstalled but in the past I have been able to get it to read the restore CDs on boot up. I can't remember how I did this - any ideas? Thanks

 

[trollacious]

You have to set the BIOS to check the CD drive for a bootable disk before the hard drive.

Lee

 

[paulbradley]

I've been in the BIOS and the 1st boot device is the CD, the floppy THEN hard drive. I have my resore disk in the CD drive but it still loads windows. Thanks for your help so far but any other ideas?

 

[garebo]

Well, do you have a manual? If not, then look inside the 2 cd's that you have and likely you will find a pdf file that is a manual, or even just a plain text or doc file that tells you how to do what you want to do. Should be there somewhere in those 2 cd's you have.

If not then how about going to the website of the mfgr?
What brand name pc is it?


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[paulbradley]

That's the problem. I think the CD drive has become uninstalled so I can't open or run any CDs. This happened once before and although the CD drive wouldn't function in windows I was able to get it to run the restore CD presumably from getting the CD to run on boot-up. However, this dosen't seem to be happending now. Any other ideas? Thanks

 

[garebo]

First off, go to device mgr and see if the cdrom is listed there and see if there are any red or yellow marks in your device mgr.

Now we have been able to learn,lol, that dma doesnt have to be enabled on cdroms, so we dont have to go there.
Just check device mgr for any marks.
Then turn off machine and unhook the cdrom, both the 4 poin molex and the other ide connector and reboot to the bios and make sure you dont show a cdrom in the bios, if you do then set the bios for no cdrom.
Then quit the bios and boot up. Go to device mgr to make sure there is no cdrom listed, then turn computer off again.

Now re-connect the cdrom, the ide and the molex connnector.
Then turn on machine and see if bios recognizes it and then boot to windows and see if dev mgr recognizes the cdrom.
Then try cdrom and see if that fixes the problem. If not, then we can go to the next step.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[lockend]

Sometimes when booting, even if your CD-Rom is listed as the first device you have to press a key when it asks, to boot from the CD.

-Dale
"There's no such thing as bad luck, just an absence of good luck.

 

[edfair]

The BIOS function of booting from the CD is a hardware function totally divorced from the windows device manager. But if the CD is bad that might explain the problem in windows.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[garebo]

thats the idea, it also give a chance to re-set the cables as well.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips