# Solved: Cannot boot from CD or USB



## victmo (Aug 18, 2003)

I got an old Dell Inspiron 5100 I'd like to format, but I can't boot from anything but the originally installed OS on the HDD. When I try to boot from either a Win XP bootable USB key or a Win XP bootable CD I get a black screen with a white blinking "_" in the upper left corner that never goes away.
I made sure the boot sequence order goes as follow: USB, CD, HDD and also used the boot menu (F12) and selected USB and CD.

I tried both the CD and the USB key on a different computer and they worked fine.

I formatted the USB as FAT32 and FAT. In the latter case (FAT) it showed a "Remove disk or other media. Press any key to restart" message.

Thanks in advance!


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## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

They actually boot on other machines? How did you make the USB bootable?

Is the CD an original Dell CD?

Any partitioning tool can format the drive, so you could try something else:

Parted Magic disk partitoning tool (Bootable CD image)
If you prefer a bootable USB key, download and run Linux Live USB Creator. Choose the Parted Magic distro, and it will download it and automatically create a bootable USB key.
This CD (or key) contains many useful tools. You can partition, recover files, recover lost partitions, make disk images (by several different methods), transfer files between media, scan for viruses (It can serve as an Alternative Trusted Platform for search and elimination of rootkits and bootkits), examine and benchmark hardware, access the internet, and much more.


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## victmo (Aug 18, 2003)

Hi Elvandil, thanks for the quick reply!



> They actually boot on other machines? How did you make the USB bootable?


Yes they worked on other two machines without a problem. I created the bootable USB keys with a software called WinToFlash (http://wintoflash.com/home/en/)... I dunno, maybe that's the problem...



> Is the CD an original Dell CD?


No, I can't find the original Dell CD that came with the computer.



> Any partitioning tool can format the drive, so you could try something else:
> 
> Parted Magic disk partitoning tool (Bootable CD image)
> If you prefer a bootable USB key, download and run Linux Live USB Creator. Choose the Parted Magic distro, and it will download it and automatically create a bootable USB key.
> This CD (or key) contains many useful tools. You can partition, recover files, recover lost partitions, make disk images (by several different methods), transfer files between media, scan for viruses (It can serve as an Alternative Trusted Platform for search and elimination of rootkits and bootkits), examine and benchmark hardware, access the internet, and much more.


Thanks, I'll try the Linux Live USB Creator software and let you know of my findings.

I booted the machine with a Backtrack Live USB I had and reformated the hard drive. Later I fsck to check for bad sectors, but It found none... Could it be a virus?

Cheers


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## Oddba11 (May 13, 2011)

Not all PC's will boot from USB.

Are you using a retail version of Windows? OEM versions will often not boot properly in non-supported PC's.


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## victmo (Aug 18, 2003)

> Not all PC's will boot from USB.
> 
> Are you using a retail version of Windows? OEM versions will often not boot properly in non-supported PC's.


This one does. I loaded parted magic from a USB like @Elvandil suggested.
I have two non-oem versions of windows xp. None of them work on this machine.


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## victmo (Aug 18, 2003)

Ok, I loaded Parted Magic and formatted my hd again, this time as ntfs. Ran the "extended self-test" of the Disk Health application and got no error... I believe this problem has nothing to do with my hard drive.

Maybe it's a bootkit. How can I get rid of it with linux? Is there a tool to rebuild the MBR?


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## victmo (Aug 18, 2003)

Ok, finally sorted!

After many tries and countless hours I ran into WinSetupFromUSB (http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/WinSetupFromUSB-Download-162452.html).

1. Formatted the USB key as NTFS using "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool" (Google it).
2. Ran WinSetupFromUSB with the following options:
- Windows source... : [Your Windows Installation folder, e.g. G:\]
- USB Disk Selection: [USB drive letter, e.g. E:\]
- Target disk type: Removable
- All checkboxes unchecked
- Press GO!

WSFU creates a custom boot menu that let the XP instalation program run.


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