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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..
Hi,
I guess a little more technically, the Root is not part of the OS... It is part of C:, which just happens to be the drive\partition with the OS...
It would be of little benefit to infect the memory, as it is cleared everytime the machine is shutdown...
I have heard of the possibility of infecting the BIOS though, but don't know how common that is...
I know that my Hotmail interface has changed multiple times over the years....
Most of the changes I didn't like, but eventually got used to... But I don't use any type of setup like your's...
I have never used gmail, and probably never will... I have enough people with access to personal info without adding another...
My Hotmail/Outlook problems started when they changed my Hotmail/Outlook interface a couple weeks ago. I gather they have been changing the interface only for groups of people at a time for a year or two now. When this happened to me and I complained, a friend back East who uses Hotmail said her's was changed over a year ago, and she did identify it as the same Interface I just got, with the black bar across the top.
So I guess every time they change a group, they have gotten complaints about this very issue. But rather than fix it, they change another group, get more of the same complaint. And then again, rather than fix it, they change another group and get more of the same complaint. Clearly, they don't care.
Apparently you get changed to using their Exchange only with the imposition of this new interface.
This is why I set this up to pull my Hotmail e-mail over another provider in the first place, because of prior issues in prior interface changes -- if I bring it over to Gmail, everything just works, no issue. But Hotmail/Outlook just keeps creating problems. Now they are creating a problem about bringing it over to another provider to avoid their problems.
I'm not the expert on what the root it, but my understanding is it is not in the OS, it is deeper down in the machine, even down in other parts of the hardware, such as the various chips. In years gone by, I have heard of malware getting to the memory chips and very difficult to get rid of when it does. But I don't know,maybe by deeper down in the machine they simply mean elsewhere on the partition.
Hi,
The Feedback Hub is a bit different than what has been available in Hotmail, but you are correct that it only involves reporting a problem, without a reply... Although I understand that has changed a bit, but I don't know the details...
It is actually an App...
Microsoft is now requiring use of a Microsoft Account to use the Feedback Hub, and I refuse to login to my machines with a Microsoft Account...
I'm kind of wondering if the problem has existed for a year, why it just suddenly appeared on your machine... Something must have triggered it to suddenly start affecting you... But I don't have a clue as to what it could be...
Concerning the ransomware buried on the root of the drive... My understanding of the term Root, is C:... Most machines now have multiple partitions, so the "Root" of the drive would be referring to the C:\ "partition"... Deleting C:\ would then delete the ransomware along with it...
It is possible that a tricky ransomware could imbed itself in the EFI partition, or Recovery partition, but I have not heard of that... The only other location would be for it to create it's own small partition, or the MBR\GPT file of the drive...
I have never heard of that happening, but I suppose it could be possible...
Normally ransomware attacks the Windows partition... there is not really a good reason for it to attach somewhere else... There are so many variations of partitioning possibilities, it would take an extremely elaborate attack to determine which partitions were in use other than C:...
I have overwritten my C;\ partition numerous times to clear ransomware, and it has always been successful, but that in itself does not prevent another attack..
I wasn't in the forums for the Hotmail issue. I was dealing with the tech support people direct, with a case number.
They didn't devise a work around. It is what is offered in Outlook now, the ability to push e-mail out to another account elsewhere. I had already tried that, but it failed too. All he added to it was to guess that maybe, while we already had disconnected from Gmail for the test, it might not be fully disconnected YET in the background.
But pushing does not solve the problem of pulling. And pulling can be much more preferable in any number of situations or for any number of reasons. But I know the tech people are not going to both fixing it, because they will figure people can do it the hard way instead, why should MS fix its broken software.
The other woman who contacted me via my original forum post was doing it to the Apple Mail application on her cell, same problem in pulling. But that would be working like a desktop application, and you can't push to a desktop application, the application has to pull.
They don't need feedback - they have known about it more than a year, and with everyone who raises the issue, they act like that is the first person to complain, and put them through the mill. They already know all about it for a long time now - and they haven't bothered to fix it.
The Feedback button to report your feedback has always been in Hotmail. But you just get to report an issue, and don't hear back -- it is a one-way thing. And then wait, and it never gets fixed, they probably never even look at the feedback, you probably are just wasting your time.
Re ransomware, yes, encryption would be a serious problem. Still, if the malware is lodged in the root, simply erasing the OS and using an image to reinstall it would not get it out of the root, so it would just take over all over again, I'm afraid. I hope neither of us ever has to test that!
