HELP Can no longer boot regular floppys or CDs

After trying out Knoppix I am now no longer to boot ms-dos floppy disks or any other bootable cd or floppies.

I can still boot my win xp installation on the hdd but cannot boot the win xp CD? After booting windows from the hdd I can use the floppy and cd-rom with no problems. Its just a problem booting from the floppy or cd with anything other than the knoppix cd.

The only cd or floppy that I can boot now is the Knoppix CD.

All others simpy stop responding and leave the system sitting with a black screen and flashing '_'

could it be that simply running knoppix from the CD just once has somehow updated the MBR or something on my hdd?

note: if i disable my hdd in the bios then i can boot from any floppy or cd as normal.

appreciate anyones suggestions on how to fix this boot problem.

I have a qbic 3402 mini PC with a seagate 120gig ata hard drive.

Thanks,
-cf

Quote:

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could it be that simply running knoppix from the CD just once has somehow updated the MBR or something on my hdd?

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No. Absolutely not.

This is a wierd problem. It's probably related to your bios (I'd contact the manufacturers to see if there's an upgrade available: it simply should not happen). It's almost as though "something" is retaining the boot information in memory.

Whatever, this bijou hackette is known to work on Dell machines, you might like to try it.

Turn off the computer. Remove mains lead. Press the power button repeatedly over a period of a couple of minutes. Try again.

Let us know how you get on, and if it works, send an email to support at qbic.