cd rom not reading bootable cds

[nuttynibbles]

hi,

i have got a pretty old p3 system. the system works fine except the cdrom.
When windows start, if i insert the cd i could read the content in the cd.
however, if i wanna read a bootable cd, i cant do it when the system boots up.
im pretty sure this has got nothing to do with the cd rom/ cd because i've tried it with other cpu and they both work.
i tried adjusting it in bios but it keeps saying there's no media found.

any idea??

[Accessless]

If you are only using one hard drive then you could try plugging both your hard drive and CD drive into IDE port 0 (as apposed to HDD in IDE 0 & CD in IDE 1; some motherboards label them IDE 1 & 2). This would probably mean that your IDE port is broken though and permanently limit you to 2 IDE drives, unless you were to buy a new motherboard. Although with that age of PC I doubt that it would be worth buying unless you found an old board at a boot fair.

[Allan]

Did this just start? If so, what is different since the last time the drive worked (new hw, sw, error, etc)?

[patio]

What is on these bootable CD's ? ?
Did you create them or are they factory ? ?

[Allan]

Sorry - I misread the post and had it backwards - thought it worked at boot but not within Windows.

[Accessless]

Oops I think that I have misunderstood as well. Are you getting a "no media" message when booting from the CD or when identifying drives in the BIOS? If your getting no media found from booting then what I said in my earlier post is uncalled for at this time.