Can't boot from optical drive on Asus P5K-E

GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
edited January 2010 in Hardware
I'm trying to get a new rig up and going, but I can't get it to boot from the optical drive to install an OS.

If I try to boot from either the Windows 7 x64 DVD or the Ubuntu 9.10 DVD, I'll either get a flashing cursor on a black screen, or a screen of gibberish characters. One time, I got several screens full of the ASCII smiley face character.

The Windows XP disc did actually boot into the install program once, but it reported the hard drive size way wrong - no surprise since it didn't have the right drivers for the controller.

Anyone know of any BIOS settings I can change or anything else I can try? I'm stumped.

I'm using a PATA DVD-R drive and a SATA HD. I've flashed the latest BIOS. It came with the second-newest BIOS, and the behavior was the same, although it's no longer complaining about my processor.

Comments

  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited January 2010
    Have you tested another drive?
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    The drive worked fine on the computer I took it out of, but I should probably try that anyway. I was pretty tired when I posted this last night. Since then I've also thought about trying a different cable, and possibly trying to install from a flash drive.
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Yeah, let us know how that goes. You did change the boot order in the BIOS, verdad?
  • RichDRichD Essex, UK
    edited January 2010
    I must have been tired too as your XP disk boots I feel it is unlikly to be a drive issue. I dont know much about Ubuntu but the Windows 7 disk is for 64BIT. I therefore assume that you have a 64bit CPU?
  • RyderRyder Kalamazoo, Mi Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    P5K.. it is going to have the Jmicron IDE controller since the ICH has no integrated one.

    Make sure that is enabled in bios.
  • GargGarg Purveyor of Lincoln Nightmares Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    Thanks, guys. I played with BIOS options for hours, and then, on a hunch, I pulled out a couple sticks of RAM. Turns out that one or both of the 512mb sticks were bad, but the 2x1gb that's still in there plays nice.

    "Om mane padme hom memtest86.com sambuddhasa"

    Just got Windows, wifi, and Radeon drivers installed. Now it's time to see if I can get Steam going quickly enough to join in the TF2 festivities tonight :D
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