Which brands of USB DVD drive can boot my Gateway MX6920 Laptop?

[monsteroftheid]

I've gone through 6 brands of external USB DVD drive. It won't boot from any boot disk I use. I can boot from the internal DVD drive. I can boot from a USB Stick.
BIOS text startup has listed the drives when they were connected. I know it sees it and the drive spins up. I have checked the boot order in the BIOS. The drive(s) haven't been listed on the F10 list.
Fortunately I have been able to return all these drives (which I assume work just fine once windows is started).
Just need a few brand names to try out. FYI, NOT Memorex, Buffalo, Nu, Lacie, Gearhead, or Samsung.
Thanks!

 

[WR2]

Try the F12 key at power on.
See the USB DVD drives listed there?

 

[monsteroftheid]

I can boot from USB stick and USB floppy disk. Why not a USB CD/DVD drive? Even if its just a reader of DVDs/CDs thats all I want at the moment.
I just want a model number for the drive that I can boot from.

Thank you WR2, but on this particular laptop F10 is the drive list button. F12 happens to be the boot from network button. The new drive(s) have never been listed there.
Thanks for your help anyway.

 

[WR2]

Does the USB DVD drive have any software that needs to be loaded first?

 

[monsteroftheid]

There's a circular logic flaw in your question.

For all of the drives that I have tried there is a CD that requires that you install the fancy burning software from within Windows WHILE you are in Windows. My concern is that I can't boot from any bootable CDs using these drives.
If the CDs provided with the drives are bootable (This would be desireable) then they are completely useless as the system won't boot from those drives with any bootable CD. This is the main problem I have been trying to address.

 

[Brett928S2]

There's a circular logic flaw in your question.

For all of the drives that I have tried there is a CD that requires that you install the fancy burning software from within Windows WHILE you are in Windows. My concern is that I can't boot from any bootable CDs using these drives.
If the CDs provided with the drives are bootable (This would be desireable) then they are completely useless as the system won't boot from those drives with any bootable CD. This is the main problem I have been trying to address.

Hi

ALL those drives are bootable....

The problem you are having is the CD which I assume YOU created is NOT being seen as bootable....

I sell external dvd drives and have NEVER ever seen one that wasnt bootable....

All the best Brett

 

[monsteroftheid]

I have tried the official Windows install disks as well as Ubuntu and even in store using the BestBuy tech's special ultimate boot cd(whatever is on that) that I have always been able to boot from in my internal drives. Tested them immediately after in my internal drive and they boot fine so the disks aren't bad.
And since I can boot from USB stick my USB ports aren't broken.

Maybe it has to do with how the drives are manufactured in the US since I just noticed this site is UK based (where you say they apparently all work). Provide even one brand and model number of the ones you say I can boot from and I'll see if they work.
If not could you possibly explain what feature I should be checking the box packaging for. I did assume they were all bootable but experience has shown me they aren't. I remember back in the day you had to check for the technology called "El Torito" on internal drives if you wanted to boot. I haven't seen this on external drive packaging so maybe its called something else now.

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Torito_%28CD-ROM_standard%29

Thanks, and maybe I'll have to buy a UK drive to get this to work. That would be truly silly if all those drive manufacturers purposely disabled this feature on their US drives.

 

[Brett928S2]

I have tried the official Windows install disks as well as Ubuntu and even in store using the BestBuy tech's special ultimate boot cd(whatever is on that) that I have always been able to boot from in my internal drives. Tested them immediately after in my internal drive and they boot fine so the disks aren't bad.
And since I can boot from USB stick my USB ports aren't broken.

Maybe it has to do with how the drives are manufactured in the US since I just noticed this site is UK based (where you say they apparently all work). Provide even one brand and model number of the ones you say I can boot from and I'll see if they work.
If not could you possibly explain what feature I should be checking the box packaging for. I did assume they were all bootable but experience has shown me they aren't. I remember back in the day you had to check for the technology called "El Torito" on internal drives if you wanted to boot. I haven't seen this on external drive packaging so maybe its called something else now.

http/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Torito_%28CD-ROM_standard%29

Thanks, and maybe I'll have to buy a UK drive to get this to work. That would be truly silly if all those drive manufacturers purposely disabled this feature on their US drives.

Hi

Its NOT the drives I AM SURE of that as UK drives come from all over the world...

Tell me HOW PRECISELY you made a bootable disc ???

All the best Brett

 

[monsteroftheid]

Hi. In answer to your question about how I MAKE a bootable disk I refer to the first paragraph of my message that you even quoted.

"I have tried the official Windows install disks as well as Ubuntu and even in store using the BestBuy tech's special ultimate boot cd(whatever is on that) that I have always been able to boot from in my internal drives. Tested them immediately after in my internal drive and they boot fine so the disks aren't bad. "

The Windows disks came off the shelf. Microsoft made those and they always worked, but not in external usb drives because the machine can only somewhat partically see the usb cd/dvd drives.


The disks are in perfect condition. The problem is in the usb drive not being constructed correctly. I just want to find one that is. (Brand and model number please so I can go buy it)

Thanks in advance.