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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..
The never ending problems!
Acronis just stopped, saying there is not enough space again! There is more than enough space!
Acronis indicated the Image would be 83.75 GB, as I previously explained. There is 99.55 GB free space on that partition, according to Partition Wizard, 15.8 GB more free space than should be needed.
Why is Acronis saying there is not enough space? How much space does it want?! Does it use space on the disk while it does the image, and that is what is making the difference? If so, how much do they want?
What ideas do you have for me for proceeding? I could try a higher compression. But is there at lest someway to deteremine how much space Acronis wants?
Hi,
That 16GB Recovery Image partition is from Gateway... It is used to Restore the machine to Factory... It has nothing to do with System Restore... That is a entirely different process...
The upgrade doesn't actually damage the partition... It damages the files, features, and\or processes that use it...
At the 83 GB level, the top compression makes it about 10 GB smaller. That's more than 10%.
I think it is Partition Wizard that labels #4 as NTFS partition. I forget what it labeled #5 as, but the OS labels that as Recovery. Partition Wizard labels it as something else.
But yes, #5 is the Recovery partition, I'm surprised to hear that the upgrade from 8.0 to 8.1 would ruin that! In fact, I doubt it did on mine, as I've had to do a restore to an earlier point 2-3 times when I was using 8.1, and that uses the Recovery partition to do it, I believe. Also, that partition is what we already had me use to make the recovery flash drive -- that is a 8.1 recovery flash drive, or at least from the 8.1 OS. I know that flash drive boots, although I haven't used it otherwise. (My plan next is to erase that and make a Win 10 recovery flash drive.)
I noticed that Acronis actually provides for setting how it deals with breaking up big files. It defaults to doing so, and in fact, I'm not sure I saw anyway NOT to break them, but maybe that was one of the possibilities. I left it as the default setting, to automatically deal with that. I don't know why it would need to break files into pieces to make the Image but that is what it wants to do.
I think I have a vague idea of what happens if the files have to be moved around when I take the space off. It is a function I have done many times over the years on my Mac, but one always must be a bit concerned about doing, be careful, don't interfere with it at all. I use an application on Mac to do it called TechTool Pro. In TechTool Pro it is called "Volume Optimization," as opposed to File Optimization. And they show a graph of it. It pushes all the parts together where they belong and closes up space between them, putting that elsewhere. In other words, it puts all the files close to keep things speedy, no extra space between them to slow transmission down, and things that work together are next to each other, sorted out just right.
I have to think that is what Partition Wizard is doing. And I have to think it knows how to do it right, as does TechTool Pro. I think it will be fine -- although as I say, when doing that, there should be concern, and that concern is what we are talking about. But despite the concern, I have never had an issue doing it with Mac. It can happen, but I have not had it happen. They do warn to back everything up first. Of course, on my Windows, backing up is what this is about. That's what I'm trying to do. :)
And as I said before, these are the migrated files and are simply a second, extra backup since I can't test the Image, so if they are now bad, I'm figuring I was going to use the Image first anyway.
Imaging earlier said about a half hour to completion. Now it says an hour and a half. :)
Hi,
There is no reason not to use the higher compression other than it takes more time, and there is not a big difference... I don't use it, and had completely forgotten that there was an option.... It only saved me like 1.5GB on a 20GB image, so it wasn't worth the trouble..
8-10% of 80GB would be a bit more significant amount, as would the time involved..
Be advised that what you did may work for what you are trying to do with the backup image space, but I would not even attempt it with a drive that you would be running everyday... I'm actually surprised that Partition Wizard allowed you to even try it...
The 128MB partition has to do with converting a MBR drive to GPT, and is normally not visible.
All that is important is that Acronis thinks everything is OK to make an image...
If it will make an image, it will recover it as well... Regardless of what normally works and what doesn't..
Let me know how it goes...
