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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..
slance310, thanks about the cloning info. I will still need to figure out the boot issue, as there are other things that need to boot -- such as in OS install disk, even an external USB HDD. (One of the people I found from Googling had reformatted his drive, eliminating OS 8, in order to go back to Win 7. He only then found he could not boot the Win 7 disk! He had lost everything, the whole computer over this asinine issue! You have to be able to boot from a CD or DVD as well as USB. So this issue does need to be addressed, even aside from the cloning.
I'm not clear on all the details of a recovery disk --- my background is more Mac. If I go to Win10, I doubt a Win 8 recovery disk will get me back to Win 8. A clone will. I suspect you have to already have Win 8 files on the disk for the recovery disk to make it a good Win 8. A recovery disk is NOT a full install disk with everything needed.
Help menu has instructions on how to make a recovery disk -- but I haven't done it yet, decided to do a cone instead. Regardless, I have to be able to boot that recovery disk, so we are back to the boot issue.
Now, if Win 8 will boot from Legacy, that what are the advantages to using UEFI? That was there by default, I didn't select it.
I had read something related to cloning, that said it should be done to a GPT partition. I had to do research to find out how to do that. That's too many details and too much time ago, I don't remember the reasoning behind it. But I did see issues with doing it that way too. And cone Idid it, I could not get rid of the partitions and start clean! No way to erase them, nothing would erase them. I took it to my Mac, that was able to erase them. But back on Windows, they still showed -- they are now taking up space and not usable, they were the wrong size. Every little step bogs you down with tons of research to try to figure out what to do about it. I've been at this for most of a month now, but on Mac the entire process would have taken about 10 minutes! At least on Mac its not different on every make and model, at least the people telling you things are telling you the correct stuff, rather than stuff that works only on their machine.
I want to do just a clone of the files, not the entire blank space too, so as to use only the amount of space of the files. That should be a partition or no more than about 125 GB. Frankly, that is another issue, the external drive I will clone to is something like 298 GB, but the internal drive is about 100 GB more -- and I can't do a full clone accordingly, so I have had to go all over trying to find software that will do just the file clone (one title, Macrium, called it a forensic clone. It said the version I got would do a file clone -- forensic clone -- but when I set it for that, it did the full clone anyway, so would not proceed for lack of space! It was two weeks of effort trying to get Macrium to do what it said it does, but it doesn't do that. So I got Acronis). This is so easy to do on Mac!
November 5, 2015
Have you tried booting from within Window's "Settings"?
First make sure your boot CD/DVD is inserted in the drive before you try to edit the boot order in BIOS. If it's not you probably won't see the drive listed as an option to boot from.
Windows 10 has this option:
Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > Advanced Startup
Used To Restore System Image:
I used this option (in Windows 10) to boot from a recovery disk (that was created in Windows 10) while running Windows itself. Several other attempts to re-boot via the recovery disk at startup failed, e.g. pressing the F2 or F8 key during boot.
After I clicked "Advanced startup... Restart now", the computer gave me the option to restart from my CD/DVD drive then displayed the "Boot from CD/DVD..." option at restart.
I pressed the space bar and it successfully booted from the DVD. I then followed the screen options until I located the link needed to restore a system image previously created in Windows 10.
Previous versions of Windows recovery disks would automatically display the "Boot from CD/DVD..." option at startup whenever a recovery disk was in the drive and the BIOS was set to seek the CD Drive before the hard drive.
It appears that option has been removed or changed. I'm not sure if it will work in Windows 8.1 - let me know if it does.
CaddyMick
Hi,
As far as Acronis goes... I would suggest making an image instead of cloning...
For one thing, Cloning will use up your entire external drive...
Creating an Image will only take up 10-20GB depending on what you have installed, and it can be copied to another device like any other file...
You can image the entire drive, or just select individual partitions...
I currently have about 20TB of Acronis backup Images for various machine's and OS's on 8 or so HDDs...
You can obtain Win 8.1 media from the included link....
The USB Flash Drive that it creates will not work for UEFI BIOS...
You need the ISO and a tool called RUFUS to make it work with UEFI... The drive needs to be formatted as FAT32...
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media
The problem with this method is that you will lose anything that was supplied by Gateway...
Since you have upgraded to Win 8.1, you may no longer be able to burn your own Recovery Media... The upgrade usually makes the process non-functional..
It is up to the BIOS to furnish the options for booting in the F12 menu...
Now that I think of it, have you considered checking to see if there may be an update for your BIOS... It could add some helpful features...
There is one thing you might try, and that is to turn off Fast Startup, which is different than Fast Boot... It is a Windows function, but because of the way it works it might cause a problem... If your issue happens during a Restart as well turning it off probably won't help, but is easy to try...
This feature only works when you do a SHUTDOWN and then Boot.
It doesn't effect a RESTART.
To turn it off or on...
Go to Control panel...Power Options, and select Choose What the Power Buttons Do on the left.
Then select Change Settings That Are Currently Unavailable near the top center of screen...
Lower down on the window, uncheck Fast Startup.
Another consideration.. You could set your BIOS to Legacy, boot with your Acronis and make your Clone or Image, and then switch it back.. Kind of a pain, but then you will have backup of the machine as it is now and lower your risk of more serious issues.
Win 8 will boot in Legacy, but it is best to install Win 8 with the BIOS set as you intend to use it... UEFI requires the boot HDD to be formatted as a GPT type disk instead of the more common (older) MBR type..
My current desktop that I am typing on runs Win 8, 8.1, and 10 in Legacy Bios...
It started out as a machine I built and was initially running Win 7 Pro...
The motherboard was set for legacy by Default, and I didn't even know it was a UEFI capable machine until quite some time later...
Well, I took the long route from the OS.
The UEIF Settings in there simply takes you with a reboot to bios page otherwise accessible via F2 during a restart. So nothing there to help.
There also is Startup Settings. In there, they list 10 things to pick from. The only two that could by a stretch be involved in what we have been talking about are:
*Enable boot logging
*Disable driver signature enforcement.
I clicked on Enable boot logging, to go into it and see what I could find out about it. But instead of going to a new page to do something, it restarted the computer.
I had to do the entire process again to get back to that page. And the list still says "Enable boot logging," so I can't even see that anything has changed. If it was enabled, then I see no way to disable it!
I did not hit Disable Driver Signature Enforcement, as I don't know what that is. But maybe that is the "security policy" that is interfering with that Acronis disk? I did not get that message when I put in by Windows 7 install disk.
Tomorrow I will try booting from the CD after going to bios via F2 and changing to Legacy Mode, and see if that does it. If not, then I will next go to Boot Manager via F12 and see if that will now allow me to select the CD drive and boot from it. But again, I should not have to do it that way, even if that gets it done.
Meanwhile, I'm dead in the water.
