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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 have been wondering how things were working out... I'm not 100% sure what is causing your problem...
Any windows update should not be changing your log in settings, at least not without going through a process that requires your participation..
What you are describing sounds like the screen I see if log out, or the machine goes to sleep... I rarely log out without actually shutting down, and the machine rarely sleeps...
Under what conditions is this happening ?
After a Shutdown, a Restart, Sleep, or when... just to clarify...
Your machine probably has settings for what to do when you close the lid...
One of the options is to sleep, but that should not have been changed by a update...
You can find this in Power Options > Change Plan Settings (on the right) > Change Advanced power Settings (on the bottom)
Do you have to enter anything, or just click on stuff to get to the Desktop ?
BTW... I am reducing the patch size, but the craving got worse when I did...
Almost three weeks without a smoke though... The funny thing is that it's my lungs that crave the smoke... not so much my head...
Hi, how are you. All fine here - until some MS system updates I did today, which might have come out in the past few days.
Since the updating today, now during startup, instead of just starting up and going to the desktop, it goes to some stupid page with a big pic on it. I have to waste effort clicking on that to get rid of it. Behind it is the login page -- but I never had to stop at the log in page before, it just started up and went to the desktop, which is what I want it to do instead of wasting time. I don't even have a password on this computer, and either way I should be able to automatically log in via a setting for that, I would think.
Well, I can't find any settings that might be involved with this. Can you point me to such a setting or other way to go back to haw I had it? I've checked under Settings and Control Panels. Gee, even Settings/Accounts/Sign In Options doesn't have anything for this.
Its so irritating how it is now. I used to be able to just start it, walk away for a couple minutes, and when I came back it would be all started up and at the desktop. Now when I come back, I have to deal with that stupid picture, and then deal with logging in and then wait for the startup.
Hope you're getting to a point that the smoking cravings are most gone, and now just weening off the nicotine patches.
BTW, since you're testing that big June update, give them feedback about out complaints at automatic updates, and now also about this issue I write about.
Hi,
That's really great... Partition Wizard must have shuffled the partitions properly after all...
I don't know why the Acronis estimate would be off by so much... My images are usually SMALLER than the estimate... but I am using an older version...
There is not much chance of doing a Incremental Image with that little free space...
If there wasn't a very big increment maybe, but there would not be much point for a minor change...
Your best bet for that would be to keep your eyes open for 128GB Flash Drive or another HDD you can hook up...
The funny thing is that I have 6-8 80GB IDE HDDs laying around that I have no use for... And they would be too small for what you need, unless you just imaged the Primary Partition.. Left over image storage drives from a computer I no longer have...
Feel free to ask if anything comes up... I sometimes still get replies from threads that are several years old..
And btw... you're welcome... you had to put up with me !!!
Success! I got it done!
Yes, it needed more space, because even this smaller image today, which Acronis said would be only 68.31 GB, turned out to be 95.8 GB -- so imagine how large the original Image we were trying to fit was, before I killed out 4 GB on the drive, maybe 100 GB for the final Image or more, and the empty space was only 95.5 GB! Even today's image could not fit on 95.5 GB of space!
So all along the issue was that Acronis was telling the wrong size of the final image. Like I said all along, if they would just tell us how much more space they needed, we could make some intelligent guesses about what to do.
So, just to inform, what I did since yesterday: I finished the defrag-speed disk of the internal primary partition -- and I had about 4 GB more empty space with that (not sure I didn't have that before I started the defrag, maybe chkdsk did that). I ran chkdisk on the external drive the way you had told me (found nothing). I killed out a 4 GB file on both the internal and external. maing the image smaller and adding more free space.
By the time I was ready to do this image today, I had 108 GB of free space on the external, and 4 GB less files on the internal.
The max compression said the image would be 68.31 GB. But as I just told you, after it was done, it is 95.8 GB -- not even close. Actually, that is very odd considering the size at normal compression of the Win 8.1 image, mid-80s GB. I certainly have some more files on this drive now, including Norton, but still, that is pretty good amount of extra over the Win 8.1 image, and that extra is compressed to be that.
Anyway, all done now. On the external are all the partitions in the migrated files, the Win 8.1 image in the Desktop folder, and the Win 10 image in the Desktop folder.
I have only 12.2 GB of empty space left -- much less than expected, only about 4 1/2 %. Not enough -- except this is simply holding the files, not actually operating.
Because of that little amount of free space, I would not presume that I could do an incremental backup to the image with only that little bit of space on the drive. I really wish I had known about the compression when I did the Win 8.1 image, could have had maybe 10 GB more empty space now. But I'm covered now, so that's the bottom line.
You have been incredible, amazing, so generous of your time and energy and so helpful, and sticking in there for so long. You were way above and beyond anything. I could not have gotten this done without you.
Thank you so much! And I learned a lot about Windows in the process, learned it all from you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. :)
Life is good again. :)
