[Solved] Booting Issues

[BrianD123]

Hello there...

I had posted a question a while back about booting issues in the software forum.
The group made some excellent suggestions, but the problem remained.
Even the shop where I bought the machine was stymied.

Well, it turns out that it has something to do with the Optical Drive.
If the drive is disconnected, the machine boots 100% of the time. Once re-connected, the success rate drops to about 10%.
No errors appear during the boot process, and it's a Samsung Super Writemaster drive.

What would be the best course of action?
Replace the drive completely, or is there some tweaking that I can do?

Thanks!

[Just17]

Is it a SATA or PATA drive?

Move the cable to a different connector?

Check the cable ......  replace it with a known good one.

[BrianD123]

It's a SATA drive.
Tried a different cable attached to a different connection, but the problem persists.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Just17]

Are you able to try a temporary replacement SATA device? 

[BrianD123]

Don't have any extra hardware to test an alternative.
I'll take it back to the shop tomorrow and have them test a different optical drive.
Last week they were sure that a new hard drive would fix the problem, so I have to take it back anyway.
Thanks for the help.

[horusfalcon]

A simple test that will help is if you disable boot from the optical drive in your BIOS. 

If the machine boots without problems then, I would suspect your drive is in need of a firmware upgrade (get this from the manufacturer's website and follow their instructions carefully... a botched firmware upgrade can "brick" your optical drive.) 

Keep reading before you try any firmware upgrades, though...

If this test allows you to boot from the hard drive successfully, then re-enable the optical drive as the primary boot device and attempt to boot from a Live Disk.  If boot is successful, shut the machine down to "cold iron", allow it a few seconds for the stored energies to bleed down, and then start it again without the Live Disk in the drive.  (The drive may just need to reset itself on power down.)

If you go through all this without any changes in behavior of the optical drive, consider replacing it.  It may be lugging down the system by reason of some fault or other.  (Replacement is the best option in this case.  Optical drives are not terribly expensive.)

You could consider trying to replace the drive yourself.  Depending on the computer, it's either four screws, a set of removable drive rails, or pins that hold it in place in the drive bay.  It ain't rocket science - just make sure the power's off, take your time, don't force any of the connectors, and you should be fine.  Dell and certain other OEMs also make instructions available in an online service manual for most models.  These can save headaches if one is unfamiliar with some of the fancier "tool-less" drive cages.

Good Hunting on this one.  Let us know how you make out with it.

Later On,
D

[BrianD123]

Wow, thanks for the thorough reply! I'll have to save that for future reference.

It was still under warranty, so I took it back to the shop and told them that the optical drive was at fault. They were skeptical at first, but it was easy to prove out.

They had not seen a case like this and insisted on further testing, and eventually replaced the drive.

It boots perfectly now.

Thanks for all the advice!

[horusfalcon]

Cool!  Always glad to be of service, doubly so that the problem appears to be corrected.   Now, if you will, mark the subject line of your original post [SOLVED], please?  Thanks!

Later On,
D