I have a 2.5 year old Emachine computer that has been really acting up lately and I wanted to just wipe everything out and start over. I have the original Restore CDs that came with it, but I can't figure out how to run them. The DVD drive that came with the computer is giving my an error that says that there is an I/O device error. I have a 2nd DVD burner drive that seems to work ok, but my problem is that in order for the Restore CDs to work I have to reboot the computer off those CDs. Since the DVD drive is not working then the computer just boots up windows like normal. I don't have any idea how in the world I can get the computer to boot off the I: drive (working DVD drive). I've gone into the BIOS many times trying to see if I can reconfigure it, but I don't see a way. The only boot options there seems to be is boot order between CDROM/Hard Drive/Floppy. Even when I do make a change in the BIOS and save it the next time I reboot and go back intot he BIOS the changes did not save. If I had any hair left I would've ripped it out by now and can only resort to screaming obscenities. I wasn't sure which forum this should go under so I chose hardware because I think my problems are stemming from a hardware issue??? I'd really appreciate any advice anyone can give me.

Hi, I'm not that PC literate, yet, but my guess would be if you are getting a device error, could be a bad cable? Let's see what others have to say. Veets

open the case and check the ribbon cable connection to the drives. if this is to no avail, pull the cables of the non-functional dvd drive, this should make it boot from the remaining dvd-rw drive instead. Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Thanks for the suggestions. I've tried a few times to re-seat the cables and removed the cables from the non-working drive and only had the cables plugged into the working drive, but it still doesn't boot off the dvd drive. It continues to boot straight into windows off the hard drive. Any other ideas?

And you tried differnet cables? I had this happen on a machine and bought new ribbon cables. I doubt the ports on the motherboard are fried. How are you hooking up the cables? Master and Slave? Veets

is the cd booting in another computer? have you tried another bootable cd rom in your pc? Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.' icq 10183575

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions. I've tried using a different cable and that didn't work. I think one of the problems is that my BIOS may be goofed up. The settings are: Primary Master: Hard drive Primary Slave: None Secondary Master: None Secondary Slave: None I've tried making changes to this, but the BIOS simply won't save any changes I make. I built a computer many years ago and I don't recall ever running into any issues like this before. The fact that I cannot add any other IDE devices to Master/Slave is very odd to me. The BIOS is a Phoenix BIOS. It seems to be a very watered down BIOS with only the very basic options compared to typical BIOS that I've seen before. What can I do?