cdrom=shut down

[cdroman]

A friend brought me their pc that is stuck in an endless circle. It will boot to the "windows did not start normally"; with the standard options, start normally, safe mode, etc. Choosing any option will result in coming back to the same screen. If a CD is in the cdrom or inserted in the cdrom; the pc will shut down.
I have removed the battery/reinserted in the mobo and reset to defaults on the mobo with no improvement.
Any ideas?
Thanks

[Ol'Tunzafun]

You could try stripping down the hardware starting with the CDROM drive.
Which operating system?

[cdroman]

Thanks Ol'Tunzafun; it has Win XP home OEM. Could this problem have been created by a Trojan?

[Luis XIV]

I would use XP recovery console to repair-install XP. MBR might be corrupted.
See this link:
http://www.techzonez.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3975

[Ol'Tunzafun]

You could try the XP Quick Boot Diskette - see if that will get you into Windows.
Have you checked the capacitors?
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195
http://home.earthlink.net/~doniteli/index27.htm
Is it overclocked - reset BIOS to Defaults.
Do you have another PSU that you can swap in?
Run a diagnostic on the Harddisk. Seatools will run on most disks.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.js...00dd04090aRCRD
A UBCD4Win disc is a nice thing to have for times like these.
http://www.ubcd4win.com/
Run memtest or windiag
http://www.memtest86.com/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp#top

It is unlikely that it could be caused by a trojan, unless it was badly written - they can't get any salable information out of you if your machine is down.

[cdroman]

Thanks for the replies.
The capacitors look fine.
Bios set to defaults
stripped it down to just cpu, memory and CDROM and as soon as a disk is inserted into the CDROM... shuts down
installed boot-it NG via floppy and can see HDD partitions
I don't have another PSU that has the second power plug for the mobo
tried the CDROM in another IDE slot.. same result
swapped out the CDROM for another one..same result
used a different power connector..same result

it is an Asus K8n motherboard

I would like to fix it for them as cheaply as possible as money is tight for this family right now.

obviously, I can't run any CD's

I'm thinking it is the PSU or mobo that has the problem

Does that sound right to any of you? Any other ideas?

Thank you very much for responding

[Sterling_Aug]

Try moving the CDROM to the other IDE controller.

[cdroman]

Try moving the CDROM to the other IDE controller.

Thanks; I tried that.

[Rocketmech]

Just leave the CD drive disconnected , both power and the ide cable . We've all seen a few CD/DVD drives corrupt the IDE channel bad enough to cause weird symptoms or it may be causing an excessive power draw when in use .

[Sterling_Aug]

Have you tried a new CDROM in the PC?

[cdroman]

Have you tried a new CDROM in the PC?

Yes I tried one from my pc.

[cdroman]

Just leave the CD drive disconnected , both power and the ide cable . We've all seen a few CD/DVD drives corrupt the IDE channel bad enough to cause weird symptoms or it may be causing an excessive power draw when in use .

Here comes the irony. They didn't tell me about the CDROM problem; so when I couldn't boot into windows, I called them and told them I would re-install XP for them. I then installed Boot-it NG with a floppy and wiped the system partition. lol, figuring I would do a clean install afterwards. I popped in the XP CD, set the boot order.... and I have the current problem.

Is there any way of clearing a corrupt IDE channel, if that is the problem?

Thanks.

[Sterling_Aug]

The easiest ways to get around the problem is:

1.) Replace the mobo.
2.) Buy a PCI IDE controller card and plug the CDROM into that, then disable the bad IDE controller on the mobo.

[cdroman]

The easiest ways to get around the problem is:

1.) Replace the mobo.
2.) Buy a PCI IDE controller card and plug the CDROM into that, then disable the bad IDE controller on the mobo.

Thanks; I'll run that by them.

[FijiJohn]

You might try using an external CDROM drive via USB. That's saved me several times on laptops with bad optical drives.