# Can't boot from DVD drive



## Jmatt110 (Aug 26, 2009)

Hey guys,

Just tried to boot off my dvd drive when I noticed that it won't let me. After looking in the bios, turns out that it dosn't even see the dvd drive, yet it works fine once in windows. Any ideas? System in system specs. DVD Drive is a Pioneer DVR-215.

Thanks, Jmatt


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## InTeL-iNsIdE (Aug 26, 2009)

I had this problem before with a sata dvd drive in my bios, whats your sata set to run as in bios ? also do you have jmicron controller im sure when I enabled that in the bios it fixed my issue.


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## twilyth (Aug 26, 2009)

Don't take this the wrong way, but I didn't think it was possible for a drive to NOT show up in bios and yet be seen by windows.  Were you looking for it on the main (standard?) bios page or in the HDD section or boot sequence section?  I'm really sorry for asking this, but you're blowing my mind.

I'm assuming it's an internal drive.  An external USB drive won't show up in bios unless you look in the USB devices section.

Again.  Apologies.


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## Jmatt110 (Aug 26, 2009)

I've looked on every page of the BIOS, nothing. Also, pressing F8 during boot up to select the boot device won't show it there either. Yes its an internal drive.


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## twilyth (Aug 26, 2009)

Jmatt110 said:


> I've looked on every page of the BIOS, nothing. Also, pressing F8 during boot up to select the boot device won't show it there either. Yes its an internal drive.



That's a first for me.  I have no f*ckin' idea.

I mean, the bios is the firmware layer between the hardware and the OS.  So how does the OS see something that the hardware doesn't?

If you figure it out, I'll be very interested to know what happened.

Good luck.


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## InTeL-iNsIdE (Aug 26, 2009)

try setting sata to ide mode


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## Jmatt110 (Aug 26, 2009)

Tried that, still nothing.


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## Mussels (Aug 26, 2009)

some motherboards come with more than one SATA controller.

usually you can only boot from the first, main one.

EG, my board has 6 intel (bootable) and 2 JMICRON (not bootable)


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## twilyth (Aug 26, 2009)

Mussels said:


> some motherboards come with more than one SATA controller.
> 
> usually you can only boot from the first, main one.
> 
> EG, my board has 6 intel (bootable) and 2 JMICRON (not bootable)



Good point, but I think he's saying that the bios doesn't see the DVD drive nowhere, nohow - to put it in technical terms.


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## Mussels (Aug 26, 2009)

twilyth said:


> Good point, but I think he's saying that the bios doesn't see the DVD drive nowhere, nohow - to put it in technical terms.



which is possible if the second controller is in RAID mode. You ever ran a system with an add-in RAID card? they dont show in the BIOS, they have their own menu/POST screen after the main one.


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## twilyth (Aug 26, 2009)

Mussels said:


> which is possible if the second controller is in RAID mode. You ever ran a system with an add-in RAID card? they dont show in the BIOS, they have their own menu/POST screen after the main one.



Oh damn.  You're right.  And I should have thought of that because I have the same issue with my old Adaptec AHA-2940W SCSI controller.

RAID is against my religion though so I guess I didn't make the connection.

Thanks.


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## InTeL-iNsIdE (Aug 26, 2009)

Mussels said:


> some motherboards come with more than one SATA controller.
> 
> usually you can only boot from the first, main one.
> 
> EG, my board has 6 intel (bootable) and 2 JMICRON (not bootable)



Jmicron is bootable, but you need to enable it in the bios iirc only reason I know is cause when its enabled it takes longer to boot and I have to "press any key to continue" at the prompt


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## btarunr (Aug 26, 2009)

Is your controller in RAID/AHCI modes? If so, the DVD drive will be listed as a separate device in the list of available boot devices, not as "CDROM". Remember that when setting boot device priority. Otherwise, read the manual to see which hotkey during POST brings up the boot menu that lets you select which device to boot from. Even here, the drive will be listed separately, and not as "CDROM".


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## twilyth (Aug 26, 2009)

I think he said it doesn't show up in the boot menu.  I know that with an add-in card that's std operating procedure - at least the old stuff I have.  But for something integrated into the chipset, IDK.  i really need to get up to speed on AHCI.


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## btarunr (Aug 26, 2009)

Maybe he's trying to select "CDROM" while his controller is in RAID/AHCI mode? Because that wouldn't make the system boot from the DVD drive (unless the controller is in Native IDE mode).

Anyway, here's what I'm trying to show:


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## Jmatt110 (Aug 26, 2009)

Thanks Mussels, completely forgot about the second SATA controller. Plugged it into the Marvell controller instead of the AMD one and it showed up fine in the BIOS and boot menu


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