Hi,

I have set the boot sequence in BIOS to boot from CD drive first. But after putting in my Win XP bootable CD in, it still does not boot from the CD.

I tried doing it in another PC using the same CD. It actually boots from the CD drive.

Is there anything I can do to rectify that BIOS?
Its a Digital Equipment Corporation PC (an old one), by the way.

Does the system giving you the problem have any OS on it now???
If it has it should work---are you saving the changed settings in BIOS when you leave ?

If this is a new install with a clean HDD you might have to use Boot Up Floppies ---Im assuming this is XP--search Google with "XP Boot Disks"
This is a 6 floppy deal for either PRO or HOME--if your looking for WIN 2000 its 4 Disks---if this is ME or Win98 you need a startup disk 1 disk.

If your out for XP stay away from the file winxpsp1 you need Service Pack 1 standalone nearby ,and I cant find that---Go for " Win XP_EN_PRO_BF.EXE substitute HOME for PRO in the file line if your going for XP HOME.

Post some system specs, especially CPU Speed and RAM amounts. DEC has been out of business for several years, that system is probably not up to minimum system requirements for XP. The CD might not boot no matter what you do because it and the motherboard were both made before bootable CDs and the motherboard resources to use them were perfected. unless I'm mistaken the fastest machine DEC made was around the 233-333MHz range. Most I've seen have been 486-25/50/66 win3.x boxes. Think I still have a DEC 486 in fact...

It's also possible the older CD drive won't read the more modern file format used for the XP boot CD. In that case simply switching to a newer CD ROM should work. (Same thing that causes older C DROM drives to refuse to read disks burned on a CDR/CDRW drive.) I think 16X was the cutoff speed, anything 16X or slower has trouble reading the newer CD format.

Also, since this is an older PC, have you checked to make sure that it is "up to snuff" to be able to host WinXP??

RAM requirements for XP could definitely be a sore spot...

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/os/winxp/requirements.mspx