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I am trying for the first time to boot my Windows 8.1 laptop from the internal CD-DVD drive. I have a bootable CD in there, and yes, I do have the bios set with CDROM drive as first in the list to boot from. But when I try to boot from the CD, it won't boot, instead the computer gives me this message:
"ATAPI CDROM has been blocked by the current security policy."
(Its actually a DVD drive.) All it lets me do at that message is hit the Enter key to OK the message, and then it boots from the hard drive.
I have no idea where "security policy" settings are or what they are set for. What do I have to do to get this to boot?
This is a Gateway laptop, 2.2 MHz Intel Pentium processor, 4 GB RAM, 64 bit OS, with Windows 8.1 fully updated, and Windows Defender running and fully updated.
I have already looked everywhere I can find, but nothing seems to address this message or issue, as follows:
*I went to Help menu to look up "Security Policy." While the computer is giving me the message about "security policy," the Help menu has no idea what "security policy" is, it just comes up blank!
*I went to Control Panels/System and Security/Action Center/Change Windows Settings/Smart Screen/... All I found in there that might be involved is a setting to block anything downloaded from the Internet until I give administrator access. Well, the booting issue didn't allow me to give administrator access (yes, I am the administrator) when I tried to boot, I only could hit the enter key to OK. Nonetheless, I changed to: notify me but proceed (not a quote).
With that, I tried again, but it still would not boot from the CD, got the same message, so that setting is not it. I changed the setting back.
I see no other setting there that could be related by even a stretch. And the control panels should be dealing with the OS anyway, and this is happening while trying to boot from the OS on the CD, not the hard drive. That is, this is something in the root.
*I then went into bios area (UEFI Firmware) by sweeping in from the right and into Settings/Change PC settings ..., and found a tab in bios for Security. Looking there, there is a list of things, but it lets me access only "Supervisor Password." It was currently set as "clear," meaning no password. I left it as that -- surely I can't need a password just to boot from a CD, and the message I got in trying to boot from the CD did not allow me to enter a password.
Other settings in the Security tab were not accessible. The only ones they included that might be remotely related were:
*Password on Boot, which was set as no password. But again, the message I get with this issue does not ask for nor allow me to enter a password.
*Secure Boot Mode: Standard (It does not let me access to change that.)
Some others also were in the list that are not worth listing, not even vaguely related.
I then went into some other things elsewhere in the main settings called Startup Settings. The only thing in there that sounded the least bit vaguely related was "Enable boot logging." I punched F2 to go into that, but the machine instead restarted, and did not start from the CDROM, same message again. I went back to it, and it is still listed as Enable boot logging, does not instead say Disable - so I don't know if anything even got changed. I did not touch it again, left it as-is.
So, that's it. I've checked all the settings I know about. Nothing about this bit about "ATAPI CDROM has been blocked by current security policy."
I tested with two DVDs that I have booted from in the past on other Windows machines -- they also would not boot, but they did not give me that message.
I note, all three CDs/DVDs are being read fine by the DVD drive once the machine is booted in Windows 8.1 from the hard drive - so the issue is not that the DVD drive can't read the disks.
Where is this "security policy" set?! What do I need to do to get this to boot from the CD?
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
Hi,
So everything is back to normal... or at least working to your satisfaction ?
You seem to know more about manipulating your email than I do, but though I may be able to help by describing what my screen looks like !
I know how that kind of conversation goes... Not so much with Microsoft, but with my internet provider sometimes..
I already downloaded the Media Creation Tool for the Creators update the other day, a day after the update came out.
OK, so no worry about chk dsk. Still, it fouled me up over the weekend, and that is not the first time it has done that. I'm not sure it didn't leave me with troubles I did not start with. I had to do a number of forced shutdowns and try other things before hours later I finally got the machine booted again. And this happened when using chk dsk a couple other times. That is, it didn't fix things, it broke it!
Hi,
If I said ChkDsk might damage your files, I was mistaken... I think I was thinking about defragging as it shuffles the file fragments around...
ChkDsk should actually fix, or at least try... to recover any errors if any are found...
Hopefully you are good to go with the Creators Update... It is available now through the Create Media Link... The one where you have to run the tool to start the download of a ISO, or make a flash drive...
OK, thanks for the input.
Then you're saying basically, who knows. But one thing to consider doing is to run chk dsk on the external drive.
But the other day, when we were talking of possible corruption when copying a file, you were saying even running chk dsk can do that, and might do it to the Acronis images. So, I don't want to run chk dsk now, that would seem like an unnecessary risk at this juncture, even if small.
I remind, that is a basically brand new hard drive. I only took it out of the box when we first went through all that crap previously about partitioning it for the images. So, it has only been used that tiny bit so far. But yes, even straight out of factory, things can have problems. And we don't know any absolutes about this, so we can't rule that out.
My best guess is that I got that message because I accidentally set it up to image the external to the external. But yes, possibly one of the partitions on my internal has something bad, but maybe not the C partition -- even though disk management marks them all as "healthy." Just to be clear, this was not detected "while" copying/imaging, it was detected while setting up to do that -- I don't know how it detected that so fast, which also raises questions about its accuracy. I'm suspecting Acronis simply used a standard, generic message that uses "partitions" rather than "partition" -- that is not uncommon. But no, when I got that, I was definitely set up solely for external to external, no internal involved. It was after I got that message that I realized what I had done, and was glad it hadn't proceeded.
Re the incremental image, I thought that would be the case, I have to actually select an image to which to do the incremental backup -- I did not. I just didn't know if Acronis would detect an image to do it to. So, I must have a full image. I must have killed out who knows what that left me with less on the internal drive.
So, I guess all done. Thanks again for all your help and input. You're great.
OK, thanks for the input.
Then you're saying basically, who knows. But one thing to consider doing is to run chk dsk on the external drive.
But the other day, when we were talking of possible corruption when copying a file, you were saying even running chk dsk can do that, and might do it to the Acronis images. So, I don't want to run chk dsk now, that would seem like an unnecessary risk at this juncture, even if small.
I remind, that is a basically brand new hard drive. I only took it out of the box when we first went through all that crap previously about partitioning it for the images. So, it has only been used that tiny bit so far. But yes, even straight out of factory, things can have problems. And we don't know any absolutes about this, so we can't rule that out.
My best guess is that I got that message because I accidentally set it up to image the external to the external. But yes, possibly one of the partitions on my internal has something bad, but maybe not the C partition -- even though disk management marks them all as "healthy." Just to be clear, this was not detected "while" copying/imaging, it was detected while setting up to do that -- I don't know how it detected that so fast, which also raises questions about its accuracy. I'm suspecting Acronis simply used a standard, generic message that uses "partitions" rather than "partition" -- that is not uncommon. But no, when I got that, I was definitely set up solely for external to external, no internal involved. It was after I got that message that I realized what I had done, and was glad it hadn't proceeded.
Re the incremental image, I thought that would be the case, I have to actually select an image to which to do the incremental backup -- I did not. I just didn't know if Acronis would detect an image to do it to. So, I must have a full image. I must have killed out who knows what that left me with less on the internal drive.
So, I guess all done. Thanks again for all your help and input. You're great.
