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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..
Oh! Excitement, joy! I just tried again to download that 17.6 MB Windows Media Creator. I got it. It didn't work at first try,but then after a delay, it finally opened. I was able to go through it, and I have just stated the Win 10 upgrade ISO download!
I hope I get it this time. From last time, I know this is going to take overnight, and I hope I don't have any ISP glitches, which from my experience is too much to ask. But for now, it is downloading. And it said it is Windows 10.
If I get this, doing the upgrade is how to fix those other problems. I hope these issues I have do not make for a corrupted download! Hmm, maybe the reason it works this time is because of that repair I ran earlier.
You might have read that before I added the bold face edit at the top -- you might want to check that.
So, I am started up. No message given, but it starts up. Wasn't there to see that it did complete rather than bypass fixing, but it starts up now.
So, since it now starts up, no need to run the Startup Repair from the Win 8.1 disk. Thanks for the advice, though.
Tested Window Update -- same, can't finish a check.
Looked for the update I found in one forum causing the issue, fond it, March 2014. I can't uninstall it. I can uninstall other updates, by right clicking on the, and selecting Uninstall. I get no menu from this one when ight clicking on it. I don't know of any other way to uninstall it. Still, it has been there since March 2014, so I don;t see how it cold suddenly be the issue now.
I ran the Windows Update repair again Again, ti found the same two issues:
Win Update database error 0x80070490
Win Update components must be repairs.
Hmm, I have a note laying here about Windows Update error 8024402F. Not sure when that is from, but I previously pointed out that I get different error codes every time, so that was probably one of them. (I have piling up more and more scribbled notes all over, being drowned in them.)
It indicated it fixed both. But I get that same thing every time, so if fixed, it doesn't stay fixed.
I then found out I could no longer make capital letters! In fact, that made it so I could not even log into my Hotmail account, as it requires a capital letter in the password! And that means this forum too.
I ran the hardware repair in action Center, and that fixed it-- so here I am.
Since I ran that repair, I tried to kill out that one Update again, but I still got nothing from right clicking on it. It is KB2919355, from May 2014. I can't kill any from that same date. Again, its been there all this time, how could that be the problem. Somewhere I saw a note about there being http:\support.microsfot.com/?kbid=2919355. All I get in trying to go there is "Server Not Found." I guess Microsoft has gone out of business -- good. (Yes, I can go to other Websites, internetting is working, just not that URL.)
I can once again try to Restore from a previous restore point -- older than the one I tried earlier, as that message from that earlier run suggested. I doubt it will work, since I seem to still have all the issues, which surely are why the previous try did no work.
Do you have any suggesting now? At some point, the last resort is to try to restore from that Image via Acronis. I will have to ask some questions before doing that if it gets to that.
All this repair effort just to get rid of this OS in favor of Win 10!
Hi,
There's probably not much of a choice other than to forcibly power off the computer..
The good thing is that if it has hung, the drive may still be OK...
You might need to do a Startup Repair with your Win 8.1 DVD...
Just select REPAIR at the Install screen... Troubleshoot... Advanced... maybe twice... and you will see the screen for a Startup Repair...
If it comes down to it, this is exactly why you made the Images...
If it becomes necessary, try the Acronis first...
BTW... When you use the Acronis, if you see a box for the MBR along with the list of partitions... uncheck it... You probably won't see that with a GPT Disk...
EDIT: Gee, now nix what I just wrote, below. I just got off a half hour phone call, and in returning, the computer is finally booted! OK, now going to check it, trying Windows Update now. Will let you know later about that.
But there is no message I see about any repair.
Major trouble now -- help. I might have lost the machine. I told you this was simply going into new chapters.
As I said I was going to do, I proceeded with restoring to an earlier restore point, and chose a week ago. This trouble started during that download when it hung up at 79% the other day.
The restore started, but in a few minutes stopped, with the message:
System Restore did not complete successfully
Details:
System Restore failed while scanning the file system on the driver C:\
The drive might be corrupt. You might want to retry System Restore after running chkdsk /R on this disk.
An unexpected error occurred during System Restore ()x81000204)
You can retry again and choose a different restore point. If you continue to get this error, you can try an advanced recover method.
So, I found some disk-check thing in the OS where I could click to have it scan the disk, and if it found any issues, it was supposed to give a report and I could then proceed with fixing. But the report it gave was that no problems were found.
So, I tried to figure out how to run chkdsk /R and eventually confirmed to run it out of Command Prompt as I had suspected. I did so, as administrator
It said it could not run it because something else was running that interfered. It said I could schedule ti to run later, and it would run during the next startup. So, I scheduled the, and then I restarted.
I did start running during the startup. But when it got to 11%, it is just hung up there, is not proceeding any further, just was that spinning circle that shows it working.
It has been running for about an hour and a half now, stack at 11% for over an hour.
There is no way for me to stop it and boot, or get out of this. If I simply turn the machine off, that will only crash things and make matters even worse, and I'm sure it will only start running at next startup anyway.
What do I do? I'm afraid I have n choice but top forcefully shut it down, maybe even have to take the battery out to accomplish that. And I don't think, I'm going to be able to get it stated up again!
What should I do.
If all must be destroyed, I can only say good thing I got that backup image and migrated files done. Of course, if I could get a Win 10 disk, that might do better -- but I can't without fixing this.
Meanwhile, Ilm going to let this continue to run for a while. But I'm afraid it it can not get past the 11% mark in the past hour, that's it.
