I got a modular bay cd drive and it won't boot my XP. I looked in the bios and changed the boot order and I also saw that the laptop was reading it. help is needed greatly. Thanks in advance.

If the laptop is still booting to Windows, try the following:

1.Make sure CD Drive is seen in the BIOS Setup.

2.Make sure you can see that in Device Manager without any error symbols.

3.Make sure the drive is seen in My Computer.

4. Test any other data CD in the drive to check whether you can access files.

If all the above are OK, the problem may be with the CD and not the drive.

5.Try to clean the disc with a lint-free cloth wiping from the center to the edge sector by sector (not circular motion) and try to boot with it again.

If it is still not booting, the CD is damaged.

If the Laptop is already unbootable, check the CD in another working machine (Desktop or Laptop) to see if the WinXP disc is Bootable before troubleshooting the CD drive in the Laptop.
M

thanks.. I'll try that.. hopefully it works.... I do know though from trying the drive on another simular laptop that the drive works. So I don't know.. maybe its the laptop itself.. I should mention that its a Dell Inspiron 8100.