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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,
Running Chk Dsk on your internal drive won't do much for your issues with the external, but if there are no issues found, it shouldn't really take that long...
Every once and awhile after reloading an image, chk dsk will run on all four of my internal drives... It usually takes less than 1\2 hour... maybe faster...
Here's what I have learned. In going to the maintenance window in Control Panels, I learned that the message I had been getting was because it had run a routine scan, and the problems it was talking about were ones that had happened months ago, crashes, and they had been listed until I said whether I wanted to search for a fix or not.
So, in other words, it ran a scan and found no new issues. The previous issues were one-time crashes of something, .dll file, I think a shell.dll.
Nonetheless, since I now can't even change permissions or owners, I will try running chk dsk on my internal drive tonight. I doubt it will help.
I was thinking if that didn't do it, I could run chk dsk on the external, but what you just said made me think, that might do something to the image files that maybe I don't want done, who knows what Windows chk dsk will do to an Acronis proprietary file.
Yes, I might be overstating by calling it the "nuclear" approach. But it simply is safer not to have to do that. And the big issue here is that with an image file, I can't test it like I could with a clone on a bootable drive. Its that unknown that makes it a danger. I could think I have a backup, then need it or face death some day, and it doesn't work. :)
And what I'm trying to do is the sensible thing and should be fast and easy to do, but here again I am days later, still can't get it done.
So, I will run chk disk from Command Prompt overnight, and that either solves this, or I do the (non) nuclear approach -- and am irritated that again, I can't do what should be a simple thing to do.
Hi,
It wants to run the scan because something didn't get deleted or closed out properly,
Running the scan may actually fix some of your issues with not being able to open some files...
I just tried changing the Owner and Adding myself to "Windows" folder, which was not a problem...
I then checked System32... I was the Owner, but my account did not get added to the permissions... I had to do that again to System32...
I then checked a folder in System32, and again I was the Owner, but my account hadn't been added...
It is possible that the scan will enable you to delete the rest of the stuff with pmagic...
Your nuclear option is not as bad as you might think... other than the time involved...
If you were to defrag your drive, the image files would be getting recopied with that as well... Unless you are really lucky and they are not fragmented to start with...
I have come to the conclusion that sometimes with large files, it is faster and easier to just copy them to another drive, delete the original, defrag the smaller files that are left, and copy the large ones back...
In reality I have simply stopped defragging all of my drives except for C:\ for this reason... The original fragmented file is probably more likely to be undamaged than one that has been copied or defragged...
Windows 10 seems to do a lot better job of keeping the fragmentation to a minimum all on it's own so that it is not needed as much anyway...
I can no longer access the folder or files to do anything with permissions. I don't know why, I haven't changed anything in them since I last was able to do that.
Meanwhile, this morning, or maybe it was yesterday, I am getting a message when I boot my computer to scan the drive for problems. I don't know if that is routine maintenance or if it is detecting something, although if it is detecting something, I would wish it would just go straight to that instead of a scan, as the scanning, from experience, means 6 hours to scan it, can't use the computer in the meantime.
At this point, seems there is no idea how to delete this last file. You are saying to change the ownership, but while I can't now, I have tried that multiple times already, and it did not work -- the issue of the owner permissions must be accessed and it will not access any owner permissions no matter the owner. I've done what you are saying, several times, it doesn't work -- and I can't even do that now.
Because of that message, I guess I now have only two options: do the scan for problems, and I will do that overnight when sleeping; or the nuclear approach. I guess I will do the scan tonight.
It seems if the scan does not solve this issue, nothing will, I can only go the nuclear approach.
Thanks for your help, and I will keep you posted, but I guess not until tomorrow at least (I might not have time for this tomorrow) since I can't do anything today, have to wait until tomorrow after the overnight scan.
Oh, BTW, I just changed the name of the folder to Windows. That made no difference.
