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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..
Just to update, I checked the external drive. I see no remnants of the Win10 Image.
It says there is 81.7 GB free space on it. The Win 8.1 Image is 88.25 GB, have to figure Win 10 that much and likely something more.
I wish Acronis would tell me the expected size of the image so I could know how much space I need.
I will think on what I might do about it in the coming days. Figure at least 10 GB needed, and should have some free space too. I certainly don't have that volume of stuff on the drive that I don't want. Will consider, might even look at what is in the migrated files and find some now-outdated stuff to kill. If not, what I already said, drag the Win 8.1 Image to the laptop, erase and make one partition on the external, drag Win 8.1Image back (I don't like doing that once much less twice, every time you do something like that the is chance of something getting corrupted), and then there would be plenty of room for the Win 10 Image. But I like the backup of those migrated files in case the Image doesn't work.
Disaster! Have lost Windows 10, can't boot, no repair works, not even any restore. Only solution left that I know of would lose me all my files, well, I could try to restore the Win 8.1 Image and start from the beginning again.
I posted another forum topic about it, if you're interested:
And here I thought I was all done with the problems, and would simply do the Image backup and be done. As you can see in that link, this happened because of trying to do the backup today! I was expecting to being making a post for you about now telling you that was finally all done. Nope, another disaster.
EDIT: I got it to boot from the internal drive. It is at the Restore point of 2 weeks ago. So the restore worked after all. You can see that link for my further talk --I am wondering if the problem is because I still had the external drive plugged in -- I unplugged it this time. If so, I didn't have to do a restore, and would not now have to go back and do all the updates.
I don't think I will get back to the Imaging today. :(
But regarding that, how am I to know how much space I need to do it? It should have had enough already, must need more that it used during the imaging. Acronis doesn't say how much space it need, only that it need more.
Hi,
I was going to suggest using Acronis again, but thought I would leave that up to you..
Oh, the image will go easy this time -- at least when I refresh my memory about where to click in Acronis. And I will put it on the external right next to the one for Win 8.1, in the desktop folder.
