Laptop won't boot up.

I think I know exactly what is causing your laptop not to boot from CD.

You need to get into the BIOS, go to boot options and change it from "EFI" to Legacy Boot"

Then when you restart hit the boot menu button to display a list of bootable devices, then highlight CD. and then boom now you are bootin gfrom CD!

This is a strong indicator the hard drive has failed, have it tested before replacement.

Either the boot record is corrupted or the drive is bad. You will need to reinstall the OS with your OS cd or restore your system to factory setting.

Make or get another copy of Windows XP CD

Please make sure there isn't a CD inside the drive when you are starting up the laptop.

If there is, take out the CD and restart.

Otherwise, please let me know and I will send you further troubleshooting steps.

check your bios to make sure that it is set to boot from your HDD. If this setting is correct, perhaps your HDD is failed

if you can remove your cd drive there should be a button that you can hold to one side to take it out - if your laptop is not under warranty then there may also be some screws you can remove to take the cd drive out and re insert it to make sure its seated firmly.

Also just a simple thing - you have not left any cd in the drive have you ?

Sometimes if i forget to set the bootable order back to booting from the hard drive and I have the cd drive set to the bootable drive only and there is a disc in the drive or nothing in the drive it will display that so may be worth while checking your bios to see what boot order it has and disable the cd drive as the bootable drive if its in the list and set your hard drive to be the bootable device.

Let’s determine if your CD-ROM drive or your Operating System Software ( ie...Windows XP) is the problem.
You will need a bootable CD, you can use your “Dell Resource” CD or any other bootable CD disk.
Power on the laptop and tap the F12 key to get to the “Boot Selection Menu”. Insert the DELL “Resource CD” into the CD-ROM drive. Select “Boot from CD/DVD drive” from the selection menu.
If the laptop boots from the CD drive then you Operating System Software is the problem.

If the laptop won’t boot from CD then your CD-ROM is defective and needs to be replaced.


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Thank You.

try to boot your laptop from hard disk
reset your laptop & press f2 or del to go in cmos setup by press f2 or del key then afer go in boot manu select there is hard disk in a frist boot divice then save the settings by press f10

try this
may your problem will solves

You have a non-bootable CD in the CD drive and the startup sequence is looking at the CD drive before the hard drive. Remove the CD and you should be able to boot.
Dan