How Can I boot my Dell Dimension 4700 to a windows XP SP1 Bootable installation disk, I've tried changing the boot sequence and everything:( It just won't work, I don't know where to begin with this dinosaur.

There are no advanced BIOS options? There are no advanced BIOS options?

the advanced bios was only a diagram
if you do not have the boot from cd option make sure you can see the drive in windows explorer if you cant see this cd rom it might be a power or registry problem
make sure that the dvd burner is getting enough power test all leads that are attached to the dvd burner including electical extensions and make sure they have a secure connection or just replace them there might be bad/faulty or
your drivers may have been corrupted or you might have a virus run your antivrus program
you might have to physically unplug the leads for this cd/dvd burner then plug them back in or
you might have to uninstall then reinstall your DVD/CD or uninstall the driver then reinstall for this device
control panel admistrive tools,computer management,device manager scroll down cd dvd rom drives right click you can you can update driver,roll back driver,or
select properties general troubleshoot, select driver click to reinstall drivers click update driver or uninstall then reinstall

if this does not fix the problem it might be a registry problem

Close all open programs
Click on Start, Run, and type regedit and press Enter
Click on the plus signs ( ) next to the following folders
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SYSTEM
CurrentControlSet
Control
Class
{4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column.
Upper Filters
Lower Filters
Upper Filters.bak
Lower Filters.bak
If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete

After deleting the keys, close the registry editor
Reboot your computer
Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned. You may also want to open Device Manager and verify that the yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone.



hope this helps the advanced bios was only a diagram if you do not have the boot from cd option make sure you can see the drive in windows explorer if you cant see this cd rom it might be a power or registry problem make sure that the dvd burner is getting enough power test all leads that are attached to the dvd burner including electical extensions and make sure they have a secure connection or just replace them there might be bad/faulty or your drivers may have been corrupted or you might have a virus run your antivrus program you might have to physically unplug the leads for this cd/dvd burner then plug them back in or you might have to uninstall then reinstall your DVD/CD or uninstall the driver then reinstall for this device control panel admistrive tools,computer management,device manager scroll down cd dvd rom drives right click you can you can update driver,roll back driver,or select properties general troubleshoot, select driver click to reinstall drivers click update driver or uninstall then reinstall if this does not fix the problem it might be a registry problem Close all open programs Click on Start, Run, and type regedit and press Enter Click on the plus signs ( ) next to the following folders HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE SYSTEM CurrentControlSet Control Class {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} This folder is the DVD/CD-ROM Drive Class Description in the registry. Look for any of the following names in the right hand column. Upper Filters Lower Filters Upper Filters.bak Lower Filters.bak If any of the above keys shown in step 4 are listed, right-click on them and choose Delete After deleting the keys, close the registry editor Reboot your computer Open My Computer and check to see if your CD or DVD drives have returned. You may also want to open Device Manager and verify that the yellow exclamation and error code on the CD or DVD drive is gone. hope this helps