Change optical device for recovery boot
in [Laptops]
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From: undisclosed on 3 Aug 2010 21:52 Hello I have a 7 year old Acer Aspire 1700 notebook. Its DVD/CD-ROM doesn't function, it is detected, correctly installed but it just can't read CD's properly anymore. The thing is I need recover the computer. So I used a external drive by USB. When I launch the recovery CD by the external drive, after boot and before starting the recovery it asks to put in CD1(system CD) in master CD-ROM (the internal broken one). Is any way to I change files in the recovery CD in order to bypass the need for master CD-ROM or other to recover my PC? Many thanks -- Guerreiro.v
From: Lars on 4 Aug 2010 04:21 On a bootable CD it is specified in startup files which device to load as CD. When I burn my own recovery CD's I normally specify to load two CD's to avoid problems like yours. On a factory made recovery cd you can not change these settings, since they happen early on in the start process, (while processing config.sys and autoexec.bat). I think your best option is to physically remove the internal CD so it is never detected. That way your external CD ought to load as the only one. Previously, on Usenet undisclosed wrote: >I have a 7 year old Acer Aspire 1700 notebook. Its DVD/CD-ROM doesn't >function, it is detected, correctly installed but it just can't read >CD's properly anymore. The thing is I need recover the computer. So I >used a external drive by USB. When I launch the recovery CD by the >external drive, after boot and before starting the recovery it asks to >put in CD1(system CD) in master CD-ROM (the internal broken one). >Is any way to I change files in the recovery CD in order to bypass the >need for master CD-ROM or other to recover my PC? Lars Stockholm
From: Bob Villa on 4 Aug 2010 07:20 On Aug 3, 8:52 pm, undisclosed wrote: > Hello > > I have a 7 year old Acer Aspire 1700 notebook. Its DVD/CD-ROM doesn't > function, it is detected, correctly installed but it just can't read > CD's properly anymore. The thing is I need recover the computer. So I > used a external drive by USB. When I launch the recovery CD by the > external drive, after boot and before starting the recovery it asks to > put in CD1(system CD) in master CD-ROM (the internal broken one). > Is any way to I change files in the recovery CD in order to bypass the > need for master CD-ROM or other to recover my PC? > > Many thanks > > -- > Guerreiro.v I think you need to be bootable from a USB device (check BIOS). And considering the age...it may not be possible. See if there is a BIOS flash available to allow USB booting.
From: undisclosed on 4 Aug 2010 08:13 To Bob Villa: Yes it boots from USB. When it asks for the recovery CD in the master CD-ROM it has already booted and about to start the recovery process from the USB external CD drive. To Lars: I already tried that and instead of asking for the recovery CD in the master CD-ROM, it reports "unknown status" for master CD-ROM like it searched for it and couldn't find and stuck! I dismounted the recovery CD with Isobuster and the boot image with Winimage and got this autoexec.bat: @echo off rem system CD boot disk ver. 1.0 SET CDDRIVE=X SET RAMDRIVE=A: SET RAMFLAG=A: rem SET COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM call GETRAMDR IF NOT '%RAMDRIVE2%'=='' GOTO ramok CALL DISPMSG There was a problem determining your system configuration. CALL DISPMSG2 Press any key to continue. PAUSE GOTO end :ramok cls LH MSCDEX /D:IDECD001 /L:%CDDRIVE% IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET CDDRIVE= IF NOT '%CDDRIVE%'=='' SET CDDRIVE=%CDDRIVE%: PATH=A:\;%CDDRIVE%\acer\tools;%RAMDRIVE2%\ COPY A:\COMMAND.COM %RAMDRIVE2% >nul SET COMSPEC=%RAMDRIVE2%\COMMAND.COM SET ARG=ENABLEREBUILD VERIFY smartdrv.exe a:\ckrom.exe x: LH %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\MOUSE.EXE >nul rem setmouse.exe /s110 %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\dbios.EXE >%RAMDRIVE2%\BIOS.DMI rem copy /y %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\MOUSE.EXE C:\SYSINFO\ASTATUS.INI rem a:\CHKFPY.EXE >nul lh %CDDRIVE%\recovery.exe :end And this config.sys: DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS i=b000-b7ff DOS=HIGH,UMB LASTDRIVE=Z devicehigh=a:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:IDECD001 DEVICE=A:\RAMDRIVE.SYS 1500 /E DEVICEHIGH=A:\ANSI.SYS I'm willing to change these (like you said that were the startup files that specifies the device to load) and mount it all back again in a modified recovery CD. Also the CD has STCDInfo.ini and DumpPrj.txt files that enounces most paths of files within CD to drive M (SWZEN02329=M:\OTHERS\OEMINFO\WINPER\ALL\MODULE) and very few to drive I. Can you suggest me where to start changing in these files in order to make the recovery CD work in the external drive please? Please help me, the notebook is good (for the age) and I really want to make it work! Thanks -- Guerreiro.v
From: BillW50 on 4 Aug 2010 09:05
On 8/4/2010 7:13 AM, undisclosed wrote: > To Bob Villa: Yes it boots from USB. When it asks for the recovery CD in > the master CD-ROM it has already booted and about to start the recovery > process from the USB external CD drive. > > To Lars: I already tried that and instead of asking for the recovery CD > in the master CD-ROM, it reports "unknown status" for master CD-ROM like > it searched for it and couldn't find and stuck! > I dismounted the recovery CD with Isobuster and the boot image with > Winimage and got this autoexec.bat: > > @echo off > rem system CD boot disk ver. 1.0 > SET CDDRIVE=X > SET RAMDRIVE=A: > SET RAMFLAG=A: > rem SET COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM > > call GETRAMDR > IF NOT '%RAMDRIVE2%'=='' GOTO ramok > CALL DISPMSG There was a problem determining your system > configuration. > CALL DISPMSG2 Press any key to continue. > > PAUSE > GOTO end > > :ramok > cls > LH MSCDEX /D:IDECD001 /L:%CDDRIVE% > > IF ERRORLEVEL 1 SET CDDRIVE= > IF NOT '%CDDRIVE%'=='' SET CDDRIVE=%CDDRIVE%: > PATH=A:\;%CDDRIVE%\acer\tools;%RAMDRIVE2%\ > COPY A:\COMMAND.COM %RAMDRIVE2%>nul > SET COMSPEC=%RAMDRIVE2%\COMMAND.COM > SET ARG=ENABLEREBUILD VERIFY > > smartdrv.exe > a:\ckrom.exe > > x: > > LH %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\MOUSE.EXE>nul > rem setmouse.exe /s110 > %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\dbios.EXE>%RAMDRIVE2%\BIOS.DMI > > rem copy /y %CDDRIVE%\acer\tools\MOUSE.EXE > C:\SYSINFO\ASTATUS.INI > > rem a:\CHKFPY.EXE>nul > lh %CDDRIVE%\recovery.exe > > :end > > And this config.sys: > > DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF > DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS i=b000-b7ff > DOS=HIGH,UMB > LASTDRIVE=Z > devicehigh=a:\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:IDECD001 > DEVICE=A:\RAMDRIVE.SYS 1500 /E > DEVICEHIGH=A:\ANSI.SYS > > I'm willing to change these (like you said that were the startup files > that specifies the device to load) and mount it all back again in a > modified recovery CD. > Also the CD has STCDInfo.ini and DumpPrj.txt files that enounces most > paths of files within CD to drive M > (SWZEN02329=M:\OTHERS\OEMINFO\WINPER\ALL\MODULE) > and very few to drive I. > > Can you suggest me where to start changing in these files in order to > make the recovery CD work in the external drive please? > Please help me, the notebook is good (for the age) and I really want to > make it work! > > Thanks In the BIOS, you might be able to change the setting for the CD-ROM to NONE. If you can, this is your best bet that it might work without any other changes. If that fails, another option is to physically remove the internal CD drive. This is usually held in place by one single screw on the bottom of the laptop. Could be under a trap door as well. Once you find this screw and remove it, the whole CD drive should just pull right out. And now everything should run off of the USB CD drive. If both the above fails, then I would go for modifying the autoexec.bat and the config.sys files. And I might think about changing them to run from the hard drive instead by creating a small partition to hold the CD contents. That is if the hard drive has enough space to do so. -- Bill Gateway MX6124 ('06 era) 1 of 3 - Windows XP SP2 |