General Discussions

boot sequence error – crazyishone

crazyishone

Member

Posts: 1685
From:
Registered: 08-25-2004
so, i was running knoppix from a cd a while ago, and set up my bios to boot from cd. Well, ive decided that i will just boot Windows from the harddrive so my family doesnt havnt to do anything differently, and that i would interupt the sequence and boot knoppix from the cd. So , yah, im trying to be the nice guy here. :P

heres the problem:::
when i set it to boot from the Internal HDD, so that windows would automatically boot, it stopped working right.

Now, when i start up my computer, it says that there is nothing to boot from. I have to press f12 and manually choose where to boot from, then it works. Well, obviously this is inconvenien for everyone else, and I cant seem to fix it.

No matter how i set up the boot sequence, it never works. I always have to do it manually.

I have a dell Inspiron 1100, BIOS Revision A32

please, i hope somebody here can help me out.

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"You can stop quoting my every word. I'm not that famous!"--Colton Moffitt

Jachin

Member

Posts: 113
From: Independence, OR, USA
Registered: 01-03-2003
Hi,

Your BIOS has more settings than the default boot device.
Try doing a IDE (HDD) device scan too, just to make sure it is detecting it with the correct sectors, size, etc.

Hope this helps.

crazyishone

Member

Posts: 1685
From:
Registered: 08-25-2004
well, jachinm its a dell laptop. machines manufactured by big companies have very restricted and limited BIOS.

I cant even try your method. :-P

i tried rearranging it...i tried "reinstalling" BIOS in an attempt to get factory settings...i have tried alot.

I always get the same message :::
"No bootable devices"

then i have to restart, go to the on-time-boot menu, and boot from there. every time. >_<

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"You can stop quoting my every word. I'm not that famous!"--Colton Moffitt

Jari

Member

Posts: 1471
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: 03-11-2005
Well i'm no expert in this but if you happen to have grub as bootloader and have more than one HD then maybe you need to change the settings in grub's config file to boot the right HD.

Maybe this will help: (if you even have grub)
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/html_node/DOS_002fWindows.html#DOS_002fWindows

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Jachin

Member

Posts: 113
From: Independence, OR, USA
Registered: 01-03-2003
Hi,

If I remember the Dell laptop BIOS has many screens if you press alt-P.
The first screen probably tells if it detects the HDD.
Try also a thorough POST.
Beyond this, there is not much else you can do.

I've never had any problems booting to the Auditor Security Collection live knoppix CD and back to Windows.

I suppose it may have written stuff to your hdd boot sector.
If this is the case, I don't have an easy answer, maybe someone else does.
Worse Case: Backup your data and reinstall your OS.


crazyishone

Member

Posts: 1685
From:
Registered: 08-25-2004
haha, I know about switching pages and all that. Lol, thats why i came here in desperation. I have tried basically everything. Everything still boots , but I have to go into the one-time-boot menu to tell it to. ....

Well, thanks for your help tho.
If anybody here thinks they have something extra to offer, ....

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"You can stop quoting my every word. I'm not that famous!"--Colton Moffitt