Trying to Boot from CD-ROM

[Neil_MO]

I tried to boot my computer from a linux CD today but the computer just booted from the C drive and loaded windows (there was no indication of the BIOS attempting to boot from the CD-ROM Drive). And yes, I changed the BIOS settings to boot from CD-ROM first and then C drive. I tried the same CD on an older computer I had and the CD booted successfully. My CD-ROM drive is the PlexWriter 12/10/32A and is the secondary master. There are no other drives with it on the IDE channel and my primary IDE channel has only the hard drive. I have the BM6 motherboard and it uses an Award BIOS. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem might be? Thanks

[tjaymadison]

It may just boil down to how fully Plextor has implemented the
ATA/ATAPI specification. Or it may be a problem common to RW's.

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"I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage, mathematician, computer pioneer, analytical engine designer (1791-1871)
-- (Question: 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?')

"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand."
-- Homer Simpson

[Neil_MO]

I figured out why my computer wasn't booting from the CD-ROM. I had to set the Secondary Master to Auto in my BIOS settings. I didn't think I needed to do this because on my older computer it was set to none and the BIOS detected the CD-ROM drive anyway. Setting IDE Slave to Auto fixed my problem and I'm now able to boot from CDs.