Can't get GA-880-GM-USB3 to boot from DVD drive

[lewisph]

I'm trying to do a clean install of Windows 7 using the CD/DVD drive, but despite numerous attempts to get my machine to boot from the cd drive it won't do it. I've removed the HDD from the start up sequence in the advanced options and the only thing remaining in the start up sequence is the cd rom, but it still goes to load the existing windows 7 install.

Optical drive uses a sata connection.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions on how I can resolve this and clean up my machine? Thanks in advance!


Main Hardware Information:
CPU: AMD Athlon II X4 640 3.0GHz
RAM (Make / Model / Memory Speed / Voltages / Number of Sticks)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-880-GM-USB3
Video Card: Onboard
PSU: Thermaltake 450W

Other Hardware Information :
Monitor
HDD/SSDs
Other PCI/PCI-X Cards : TP Link Wireless Card
Optical Drives: SAMSUNG Model SH-S223C CD/DVD Burner Black (TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-223C SATA CdRom)

Software Information:
Operating System : Windows 7
Motherboard Drivers Used:
All major components check 100% after thorough testing ( eg. Memory & Memtest86 ):
Other things tried:

[MegaMouse]

why is there other booting OS since you've removed them all?
Maybe the screen showing starting of OS installation process not a wellcome screen of entering OS as you've thought?

[lewisph]

Hi Megamouse,

Nope, it's definitely loading into the OS as Windows 7 asks me to login.

The original OS is still loaded on the HDD and I want to reformat the whole drive as part of the clean installation of Windows 7. The boot sequence in the BIOS just doesn't seem to do anything, like I said I removed the HDD from the sequence and it still boots the OS through the HDD. Even when I hit F12 and manually select to boot from the CD ROM, it continues to load the OS from the HDD.

I've logged back into the BIOS and it's saved and remembered my boot sequence settings and the optical drive is working as I can access the Windows 7 disk through explorer when Windows loads.

It's quite possibly the most frustrating process to continually loop around and not get any further...

[j5]

If you have the DVD drive allocated as SCSI, it ignores the boot order.
Set the BIOS for "SATA channel 4 as IDE" (or similar, I don't recall the wording) and plug into channel 4.

[kosobai]

I'll assume that your DVD drive is working in Windows.

First, go into the BIOS and select "optimized defaults". Reboot.

Hit F12. Select the CD-ROM.

Wait a moment, and the computer will -briefly- ask you to press any key to boot the W7 DVD.

If you don't press any key, it will boot into an existing installation (if any).