Booting from discs - Machine ignores disc

>>  There is one machine where the BIOS simply ignores the fact that there is a bootable disc inserted. Other discs work, even a base Windows 7 Pro SP1 ISO works,

If you are getting other discs working (booting) and this disc isn't then the problem is your disc.

Possibles.  

1.  The drive is a CD drive and not a DVD drive and you are attempting to boot a DVD disc.  The system will only recognize a CD and not a DVD.

2.  The drive is a DVD drive but the drive is faulty.  It will recognize CD discs but not DVD discs.

3.  The drive is faulty and cannot read your media.  Other media is OK for the drive.  You can retest by burning your disc to a different media brand.

Try it with external USB DVD drive. It can be that your DVD device has problems with your dvd drive type.

Hi,

Did you checked the boot order of the affected machine? make sure that your CD/DVD drive has top priority in order to boot from it. I don't think the CD itself corrupted as it working on other machines.

Try upgrading the BIOS and see it makes any difference? If nothing works, install the OS with the help of other CD and copy the roll up updates into an USB drive and install them manually (i know it takes time).

Thanks

@dbrunton 1. The drive in question is a CD/DVD drive; I've tried using the same discs and different discs and they all work - I will try making another disc with the SP1.5 ISO as I like to call it.

I shall try an external drive see if I have much luck with that.

@Radhakrishnan R Strasngely enough, I can't seem to change the priority of this drive within the BIOS, it doesn't appear to be a part of the selectable boot drives, even though I can tell the machine to boot from this drive when it can see a disc. I've tried disabling boot from HDD and NIC and the machine completely disregards that and boots from it anyway. BIOS is also up-to-date.

as said - is it a CD - or DVD you're trying to boot from ?
and what model is the cd/DVD drive?
it is or an incompatibility between the media and drive, or a bad drive

nobus, it cannot be a CD because Windows 7 SP1 is too big for a CD.

i know - it is only asked to verify if it is a single or double layer, but i forgot to specify that

The disc is a DVD-R, it's fresh and hasn't been written to before so it only has the binary of the ISO I've just created. The model of the drive, I'm not sure, doesn't tell me from BIOS and the machine is an AIO, so difficult to even take it out to see what the name of it is.

Give it a try with another DVD-ROM.

Also, can you take a screen shot of content on the DVD-R drive? In Windows Explorer open it.

and tes tif your dvd is bootable on another system -  to be sure

@noxcho - I'm just in the process of burning the ISO to another disc.

@nobus - Yea I've tried it on other machines and it boots into the setup environment as it should do.

Ok, have you tested it already with a USB external DVD device?

Here are the contents of the ISO, if you need to see specific folder contents let me know. Thanks
Win7SP1.5ISO.png

@noxcho - Yes, external drive has the same issue, but can boot from other discs.

well it seems normal to me; but it must have an incompatibility between the system end the dvd
what system is this?

Can you put the same content to USB flash drive ysing rufus and see if it starts from USB: https://rufus.akeo.ie

@noxcho - I may have to try an external hard disk instead as I don't have a USB flash drive on me that will hold all of the contents.

@nobus - It's an Acer AIO, discontinued a few months ago so the system is relatively still new. The DVD drive is of the "SlimType" brand, no model number was given from the BIOS.

you can look the model up in device manager if needed
but it can be a bad drive
since it's an AIO - test if it works from an external dvd drive

@nobus - external drive doesn't work either, can't boot into the OS to check as the OS is corrupt and there is no in-built restore media.

UPDATE: I've came across a laptop in which it cannot read either of the discs I've created, at this point I'm no longer blaming the drive or BIOS, even though the disc works in other machines, what could the incompatibility be?

what system is this? tell us that first

Does it refuse to boot on your specific ISO or any ISO at all?

and make a new bootable disk - best on a known working pc

@nobus - What specifics would you like for the system? And I created it from my machine where the disc is bootable.

@noxcho - It refuses to boot specific ISOs, it seems to be more the ISO than the drive or BIOS at this stage.

Are you recording this ISO on the same PC? In other words, have you tried recording this ISO to DVD or USB Stick on a different machine which was not yet tried?

No, I'm unable to make the ISO on the same machine as the OS is corrupt and simply will not boot. I'm creating the BIOS on my personal machine, there are 2 other machines where I could recreate the ISO and reburn although I'm not sure on the difference as these three machines all have identical drive models.

you could use the iso also to make an usb stick -  and test with that (theough in most cases i suggest the opposite thing)
but any pc in working order will do
how did you make the iso with all updates ?  that process can be the cause also

I was talking about your personal machine, could you please try on any other machine to burn thus ISO to DVD? There is difference if the machine refuses to start from it.
If you have an Oracle Virtual Box or VMware Player virtual machine try to boot that machine from this ISO. Will it boot?

Created another disc using a different machine and got the same result. The laptop that was also having trouble is no longer having those issues.

The AIO machine is still not booting from this.

@noxcho Sorry for the late response, the virtual machine would be on any machine other than the AIO as this does not have a bootable OS installed at the moment, wouldn't that bring the same results as the machine it's currently plugged into?

No. The test should shownif your ISO is working properly on virtual machine. Then we can definitely narrow the problrm either to iso or to bios/hardware.

Apology for the late reply, I will create a Virtual Machine and will try booting from the disc using that.

the system model is normally on a sticker somewhere
you can also list the motherboard model with siw, or another software http://www.gtopala.com/

@noxcho - the ISO boots fine on the virtual machine, I can build the OS from here with no issues.

Ok, then the ISO is ok.
A question, how do you write the ISO to DVD? In Windows - right click - open with - Image Burner?

@noxcho - I use a program called ImgBurn, never had issues with this before when creating discs.

Try then inbuilt Windows Image Burner. Check if it works.

Hmm.

What volume name does this disk have?

@noxcho - I will give that a go!

@dbrunton - How so? If it's just the name of the media then it's "DVD_ROM"

>>  @dbrunton - How so? If it's just the name of the media then it's "DVD_ROM"

Just thought it might be an invalid volume name that the BIOS/system doesn't like and won't boot from.

@dbrunton - Not sure if the BIOS would look for and say, reject certain volume names? Not sure if it would be worth actually sending across the ISO I have?

Not worth it.

If you've used IMGBurn to create the ISO and accepted the defaults then the volume names should be correct.

some time ago, you posted " Yea I've tried it on other machines and it boots into the setup environment as it should do"
can you post a screenshot, or picture of that ?  it looks like some kind of autorun
it can also be handy if you post the contents of the DVD

@nobus Sorry for the late response, yes I will get a picture of that happening. The contents of it should already be posted but I'll send another.
Win7SP1.5ISO.png

i would scrap this disk, and make another one - just to be sure -  on another known good  system

@nobus Already tried making another disc and comes out the same, works on all other machines but this particular one,

@noxcho I haven't no, been trying to get some new discs as have ran out!

you still did not tell us what system this is, or mobo
plse tell us

@nobus - What info about the system would you like me to supply, mobo is a acer specific one as it is an AIO.

AIO model then ?

@nobus - It's a Acer Aspire Z1-602.

did you download the drivers here ?
https://www.acer.com/ac/en/GB/content/drivers

@nobus

I don't think its driver related? As other discs do boot, also, how would I install the driver, the machine doesn't have a working OS on it at the moment

If the Windows even does not start loading - there is no way it is a driver issue. Driver is used normally to detect the hard drive controller by some OSes.
What about my last suggestion - trying it to burn with different software?

@noxcho - sorry, I've been meaning to give this a go but I've just had to do a few things on my side here. I'll let you know if this makes any difference with the boot!!!

Ok. Take your time.

You are welcome!

Wasn't able to fix issue due to hardware constraints on the machine.