I was going to test my RAM with Memtest so I burned the cd to boot from , restarted and changed the BIOS to boot from CD drive ( isnt that how you do it ) ..........

But , instead of booting from the CD it just continued into the standard boot and Windows started. I thought I might not have made the CD right so I tried to boot from the Windows Xp disk and it wouldnt work either......


Ive only about 2 months ago had a new Harddrive installed by a Dell tech in home and this is the first time ive tried to boot from a disk since the new harddrive.....I flashed my BIOS and that didnt work, at thats about all I know how to do


Any suggestions?//

Is the PC still under warrenty?

How did you setup the bootorder?

Like this?

1; floppie
2; cd/dvd
3; harddisk

@nimblesouth, Did you burn the Cd as a bootable cd? If not it wont recognize the cd as a bootable. Dont just burn it as an ISO image,

@enlpabon, I think around here we like it if you start a new thread this way we can help you and not get everyone confused in the thread, but to answer your question, Open the case and take out the CMOS battery, it will be a little silver battery, keep it out for a good minute then put it back in. Boot into your BIOS then do the boot from CD-rom

My Pc is under warranty.......


I dont have a floppy so it was more.....

1. Cd Drive
2. Hard Drive


Im not sure I burned the cd right , but the Windows disk still should have worked, I also tried a bootable Cd that came with my system called Dell Resources, which didnt let my pc boot from it ....