Installing Windows 7 RC ... getting around CDBoot code 5

Just recently I wanted to give Windows 7 RC a test drive. I used to run Windows XP on a pretty old fashioned computer with the following setup:

- AMD Athlon XP 1600+
- 2 GB RAM
- ASROCK K7VT4A Pro
- ASUS V7100 Pro

This setup works quite decently. Well, at least for the purpose I am using this machine for which is emailing, surfing and some document and media management.

After downloading the Windows 7 RC iso image, I burned it to a DVD and tried to boot the computer from the successfully created DVD. Immediately after the computer starts the booting process, I ran into an error saying:

“CDBOOT: Cannot boot from CD - Code: 5”

Unlike some posts on the web stating that it probably originates from wrongly created DVDs … in my case it happened for a different reason. It seems that some older motherboards (apparently from ASROCK and MSI) have problems reading the boot sector used by Microsoft in Windows 7 installation DVD.

Fortunately, I found a brilliant description on how to get around this pitfall: see here.

• windows