repair win xp

[Bart Silverstrim]

hermanaa wrote:
> On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 08:57 -0500, Bart Silverstrim wrote:
>> steve wrote:
>>> John Heinen wrote:
>>>> Matthew Flaschen wrote:
>>>>> John Heinen wrote:
>>>>>   
>>>>>> Wind xp crashed.Tried to restart with win xp disk but machine want to
>>>>>> start ubuntu
>>>>>>     
>>>>> Are you sure the machine's BIOS is set to boot first from CD?
>>>>>
>>>>> Matt Flaschen
>>>>>
>>>>>   
>>>> Yes as strange as it may be, ubuntu's grub takes over execpt if I use
>>>> another linux cd for example linux mint then it will start mint linmux
>>>> but a win xp cd is plainly ignored?
>>>>
>>> does the xp disc boot on any other computer?  xp sounds like a bad cd to
>>> me, if you can get other cd's to boot on the same computer OR, its not
>>> an install cd.
>> If you're saying that you're putting in the XP cd and it's trying to 
>> boot grub from the hard disk instead, and the BIOS is set to boot from 
>> the CD before the hard disk, then either the CD is bad or the CD drive 
>> is bad.
> 
> XP (XP Professional in my case) is not following standard
>  'boot from CD' behavior:
>  --to start from XP bootable CD, you have to touch a key.
>  --without touching a key, the CD in the CD-drive will be ignored,
>  the system (with XP CD in drive) will try to start the XP OS
>  instead.

Technically it does boot from the CD if it's running the code on the CD 
to prompt you how to boot...I have a Linux RIP CD that also gives a menu 
asking if you want to boot from the boot sector on the first or second 
hard disk. I can only imagine they made it default to "hit a key to boot 
from CD" for people who can't follow directions to remove a CD before 
restarting their computers (as part of the boot sequence during setup).