Windows 7 Cannot Boot from CD Code 5
 Author: James. |
So you are trying to install the latest offering from Microsoft - Windows 7 and you boot from CD and see a code 5 error message. This message can result when booting either from USB optical drives or internal IDE / SATA optical drives.
The problem is with the motherboard bios. This was observed on an ASROCK K7S41 Socket A motherboard. The windows 7 bootable DVD was placed in an external optical drive. The BIOS was set to boot from usb optical drive and upon boot the error message, 'cannot boot from CD code 5' was seen.
Thinking that the problem was with the usb optical drive an IDE optical drive was fitted and the BIOS changed to boot from IDE optical. When powering on the same Windows 7 error message - code 5 - was seen. The CD / DVD was mastered correctly as it booted and installed on a HP 2130 metbook so that was ruled out.
The current BIOS on the ASROCK K7S41 was V1.7 while the latest version was V2.6. Therefore there is a good chance that updating the BIOS will get this system booting. The only problem is ASROCK update the BIOS from DOS mode and there is no floppy drive on the system.
So we're going to order a floppy drive, update the BIOS and boot the Windows 7 dvd again to see if the code 5 error message is given.
[UPDATE]
Well after securing a floppy disk drive and connecting it to the motherboard the bios was updated to V2.60.
The computer was restarted and the bios default settings loaded. Boot the Windows 7 DVD and the same error was given - cannot boot from cd code 5.
The conclusions to draw from this are that the problem lies with the bios. We know that the media is good as it has been used to boot in another machine and complete the full installation.
Viewed: 3359 times.