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Can't boot from OS recovery Disc - New Hard Drive
Hi.
I've been having some issues with my computer for awhile. This week it stopped booting up, so I ran the diagnostics from the Utility partition, and it seemed to pretty clearly indicate that the hard drive had some significant flaws. This was not unexpected, and I have all my data backed up on an external drive, so I bought a new hard drive.
The problem that I'm having now is that my system does not seem to recognize my OS recovery disc.
I have made sure that my CD drive is set as first priority, and tried to force it from the boot menu, but it either sits on a blank screen with a blinking cursor, or tells me "No Boot Device Available"
I've tried the disc in another computer, and I can read it there just fine.
I've ordered a replacement recovery disc from Dell, but I don't know if there's anything else I should try.
Any help is appreciated.
ejn63
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February 17th, 2013 19:00
Yes, if the drive is made bootable. See here:
www.computerhope.com/.../ch001366.htm
CJ-MBS
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February 17th, 2013 10:00
It won't boot from any other disc, but I don't know that I have any other bootable discs.
Is there a way to access discs from the BIOS besides booting?
ejn63
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February 17th, 2013 10:00
No - depending on the version of Windows you may be able to prepare a bootable flash drive -- or use an external CD/DVD drive -- or replace the internal drive. You must boot the system from something other than the hard drive to do the installation.
CJ-MBS
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February 17th, 2013 10:00
If I copied the disc to a flash drive, then set boot priority to "removable" would that work? Or does something have to be done to make the drive bootable?
It's Vista
ejn63
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February 17th, 2013 10:00
Will the CD/DVD drive read other discs?
ejn63
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February 17th, 2013 14:00
You can't just copy the install disc, no - there is a procedure to follow to make a flash drive bootable. What version of Windows?
CJ-MBS
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February 17th, 2013 17:00
It's Vista.
Would the system be able to access the flash drive with no drivers?
CJ-MBS
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February 19th, 2013 07:00
Wow! That did the trick brilliantly.
And I can access the CD/DVD drive from windows with no problem. So I'm still not sure what the problem was.
Thanks for your help. I hope other people having boot issues find this solution.