[SOLVED]Can't boot from CD (optical) after Grub installation

[harrisjo]

Ok I realize that the issue is more likely a fault in what I'm doing or have done, but I have tried for days and cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Sony Vaio vgn-fs8900 circa 2005 (http://www.docs.sony.com/release/specs/ ... O_mksp.pdf)

Windows 7 32-bit dual boot with current mint 10

Current Grub boot setup but not on Linux partition it's set up separately so that when I upgrade mint it doesn't wipe grub info I followed some walk-through it works perfectly grub has its own partition there is one for downloaded things and one for grub (so 4 partitions all together) none of which should be messing with boot.

Optical is set to boot first (usb isn't an option for my laptop).

And here we go. I had 7 on the hd, installed mint 10 (approx 3 weeks ago) alongside from cd after setting partitions with easeus partition manager and installed (easyBCD) Grub everything works beautifully and I love linux but want to try Ubuntu which is where all this started. So I burn it to cd and go to boot...

Problem is now I cannot boot from CD.
Tried letting the computer figure out CD is in there, it spins and goes to grub
Tried manually forcing optical boot. (press escape) I get the screen to choose boot option, when I choose CD optical starts running then it goes to grub.
Tried CD on another computer and it boots as it should. No issues.
Tried different CD's on my computer and I have the same issue. I can get option to boot cd-rom optical spins but fails to boot.

I don't know anything really very basic computer skills when it comes to messing around with bios or running command line. I am solid in terms of operating windows and doing simple user tasks like changing things in set-up messing around with partition size etc.

I'd be satisfied if there was a way to get grub to force optical boot (not what I would prefer but it would be acceptable).
I would really like to get bios to be able to use cd-rom like it should.
I don't know how to uninstall or revert back to pre-linux/grub config besides windows recovery disc and resetting bios/boot then wiping all linux partitions but doesn't fix the problem and I'd rather not do this.
I do not know how to uninstall or remove grub without messing anything up so help there would be great if it is what has to happen.

There's a lot of info out there and for many of you the correct place to go and what to search is obvious but my terms aren't always correct and I don't know which forums are good/up to date as many of you probably do so if I have to research something a link or direction would be very very helpful.

Thank-you in advance for your help, I know from researching a bit that this is an isolated issue not common during installation so helping me likely won't help too many others.. what I mean to say is that I really REALLY appreciate your time.

[remoulder]

This sounds like a hardware issue with the drive or the disc is non-bootable. In both cases the boot sequence is falling back to the second boot device after failing to boot from the cd.

[SimonTS]

Something that might be worth trying is to either disable the hard disk in BIOS or physically unplug it so you know that GRUB isn't causing the problem. I don't see how it could - sounds like a knackered CD drive to me.
Can you swap it for another one?

[harrisjo]

From what I've seen while doing homework the few times people asked about cd-rom/boot issues all replies basically said that GRUB couldn't be doing it because it doesn't start until the hard drive actually starts contributing but it seems a little crazy to me that after 6 years the optical fails just after using it to install mint and after installing grub. I'm going to try to disable/remove hard drive and test that will be back shortly. I will burn another disc and retry that once again but I couldn't even use my windows 7 disc as a boot option.

Also I have read about an option for grub that enables a usb boot option on computers that it is not native to. If any of you guys have heard of it and think its worth a shot let me know.. I would risk exacerbating this whole thing to at least confirm a problematic optical drive.

Still like to know if there's at least an option to put cdrom boot onto grub so that I know at the very least that I can do it. If its possible it would help in the troubleshooting and in case of a necessary restore/repair it would at least be an option.

[harrisjo]

OK pulled hard drive dropped Ubuntu cd in nothing, pulled optical drive and put it back dropped my Mint installation disk in and its working. Seems something was wrong with the optical combined with a faulty disk or my computer cant read the iso for whatever reason (it worked on a laptop running xp). Thanks for the responses hopefully I'll be able to get this image working and test everything out.

I wish I had gone this route years ago, the community is great and the operating system is everything I want it to be..

Thanks again,

joel

[SimonTS]

Glad we could help. Enjoy Mint and have fun learning.