Dell startup oddity

[John Marsh]

PC is a Dell Optiplex 780. I wish to include the CD/DVD-RW drive in the list of places the BIOS checks for a bootable drive, before it finds the hard disk.

I have the optical drive listed in the boot order list, in the BIOS. On start-up, a message appears: 'Failed to detect one or more drives during POST'. Pressing F1 then enables boot from the HDD.

Booting with a bootable CD in the drive: no signs of disc being scanned.

But: Windows 7 does find and use the optical drive. It's listed in Device Manager; no problems.

The machine was supplied with a DVD read-only drive. I replaced this with the current one.

BIOS is the A15 update. Old one (A10) featured the same behaviour.

What am I missing here?

[lomapaseo]

Could it be because it's being detected too late in the boot process?

[Saab Dastard]

IS the DVD drive SATA or IDE? Was the original the same? Were you able to boot off the original? Are you using the same mobo connector to the new DVD drive as the original?

May have something to do with the SATA mode selected on the controller.

Can you detach the HDD and then try booting off the DVD?

- and of course you have verified that the CD / DVD is actually bootable?!

SD

[peekay4]

A couple things to try:

1) If you're using UEFI boot (vs Legacy boot), you may need to manually add an entry to the boot menu, and hit F12 on startup to boot from DVD. Check what kind of boot method is being used and see below:

How to enable boot from DVD option with UEFI boot mode enabled. (Windows 8) | Dell US

2) Another possibility is that you have the wrong SATA PORT TYPE set.

- Check your "SATA TYPE" setting, it's probably set to AHCI.

- Then see the "SATA PORT TYPE" for where the DVD drive is (usually Port 4/5). See if you need to toggle between the settings (usually either "As SATA" or "IDE").

Edit: just saw that you're using Windows 7. Then you may be in Legacy boot mode and #2 is more likely to be a factor.

[John Marsh]

lomapaseo:

Could it be because it's being detected too late in the boot process?

Could be, depending on what's actually going on. I have the optical drive listed ahead of the hard disk.

SD:

IS the DVD drive SATA or IDE? Was the original the same? Were you able to boot off the original? Are you using the same mobo connector to the new DVD drive as the original?

It's SATA, as was the original. I never used the original (just bought this PC; 2nd hand). Same connector used.

May have something to do with the SATA mode selected on the controller.

Can you detach the HDD and then try booting off the DVD?

- and of course you have verified that the CD / DVD is actually bootable?!

Will look into SATA mode and boot without HDD. CD is definitely bootable: tested on an old XP laptop.

peekay4:

Thanks!... more investigations pending.