I cannot get Windows 8 to install. Specifically, I cannot get my machine to see that there is a disc in the drive.
The back story:
I have two old desktops with Windows XP installed on both. But they are inherited from my wife’s office, so I want to wipe the hard drives and install a new OS.
I bought a Windows 8 install disc through Amazon. It is a system builder disc.
I installed both hard drives in one computer.
I formatted one of them.
Now I have the option to start one in Win XP, or start with a blank HD, or start them with the key to an old Corolla. But I can’t get the computer to recognize that there is a disc in the drive, ever.
The CD drive is a DVD/ CD-RW drive. Thats what it says in “my computer” and also how the setup page identifies it.
The boot sequence is set to CD/DVD 1st, then internal hard drive. Booting in that sequence, with the Windows 8 disc in the drive, I get Win XP from the Hard Drive.
Interestingly, I had the Master/slave switch set to slave, and I got the floppy but not the DVD drive to appear. Then I put the Master/Salve/IDE switch on the DVD to Master, and I get the DVD but not the floppy.
My understanding is that full versions of Windows 8 don’t require UEFI, but can optionally use it if it’s present. However, I’ve never tried to install Windows 8 on a computer without UEFI, so I just thought of that as a possible cause.
I’m afraid I can’t tell you what happens. If Microsoft did their job, it should display some kind of error or message.
I don’t work in Windows, so this isn’t my baliwick. But in defense of my company, even we’re not so good that we can produce valid error messages from a program that’s never run, which is what it sounds like is happening in this case.
When you boot the computer to XP, does it see the Windows 8 DVD (or any other DVD’s)? If it doesn’t, then most likely, there is something wrong with the drive.
If the problem is that Setup runs but can’t install on UEFI you’d get an error message.
If the problem is that the computer never recognizes the disk as bootable in the first place because only UEFI computers would recognize it, then you’d get… what we’re seeing here.
That said, I’m not sure UEFI is even the issue here. You could try a different DVD drive and see if that helps? (Use a USB-connected one if you don’t want the hassle of opening up your case.)
Easily. Vista was kind of bloated, but both Windows 7 and Windows 8 are really slimmed-down-- the only thing a XP machine might be lacking in is RAM, and that’s only if it’s really old, like literally the first year XP was out.
I will:
(1) try and play a movie on the DVD drive (to see if its really a DVD drive),
(2) try booting my other PC to the Win 8 disk, and
(3) try swapping the DVD drive with another.
Seeing as you can use the same disk to install the UEFI and BIOS versions, it’s obviously possible to create some sort of hybrid install disk. It thus should be possible to make one part of the hybrid disk boot using the BIOS just to give you an error message.
In my experience, it is more likely that the computer’s BIOS doesn’t support booting from the filesystem on the DVD. Or, yes, that it’s not a DVD drive or otherwise can’t read DVDs.
I would recommend a USB install, but I don’t think you can pull that off just by copying files, as you’d have to also make the USB drive bootable. That is, unless you can install from within Windows XP, but then there’d be no reason to use USB. Just run the setup program from the DVD within Windows XP.
(I’ve never used a system builder disk, so I don’t know if they include the ability to install from a running Windows installation. Nor have I tried installing Windows 8 from within Windows XP, only within Windows 7.)
My other PC (“Work computer”) did not boot from the Win 8 DVD when so commanded, but does show files on the Win 8 DVD.
I booted up the Project computer and tried to read a DVD (Disney’s “Hercules”).
I tried three different positions with the DVD drive Master/ Slave/ IDE switch:
-IDE: DVD appears on “My computer,” but does not show any files or open in a window.
-Master: Same. DVD appears on “My Computer” but does not show any files or open in a window.
-Slave (middle position): Got “Drive 2 not found” on startup, F1 to continue. DVD appears in “My Computer” but actually opens this time and shows… nothing, from the Hercules DVD and nothing from the Win 8 DVD. Interestingly, an ancient (1991) audio CD (The MIT Logarhythms, “Together in Bakona”) opens and plays normally.
My current theory is that I have a CD drive that is masquerading as a DVD drive. I think I am going to go out and buy a new, internal DVD drive.
I think that it’s more likely that the drive is messed up, possibly misaligned or even dirty, bad enough that it can’t read a DVD, but not bad enough for the less dense CD.
It just would be really weird to label a CD drive as a DVD drive.