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Windows 7 Install: ‘Cannot boot from CD – Code 5′ Problem and Solution

26 October 2009 26 Comments

Having just got hold of my copy of Windows 7, I decided to install it on my rather long-in-the-tooth PC. It is a 2.5Ghz P4 with only 1.75GB of memory and a 40GB hard drive… OK stop laughing there at the back… But it works for me as I am mainly an Apple Mac user…

Anyway… I stuck the Windows 7 DVD in the drive and booted and I got this strange error: “Cannot boot from CD – Code 5″

This is quite odd as other DVDs boot fine on this machine including Windows Vista. After a bit of research I discovered that something changed in the boot loader for Windows 7. This error is mainly seen on computers with older motherboards from companies like “AsRock” or “MSI”.

Solution


There are several different solution posted on the Internet including amazing ways to burning a new version of the Windows 7 DVD with the boot loader from a Windows Vista DVD… But I wanted a quick and easy solution and here it is.

In a nutshell what you need to do is boot from a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD and use Smart BootManager to boot the Windows 7 DVD.

Step by step


  • Download the Ultimate Boot CD.
  • Burn it to a CD (see the tutorials if don’t know how to do this).
  • Insert the Ultimate Boot CD in your DVD drive and boot the PC. Of course you need to make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the DVD and not the hard drive.
  • In the Ultimate Boot CD, go to Filesystem Tools->Boot Managers->Smart BootManager
  • Once the Smart BootManager is loaded, take out the Ultimate Boot CD and put in your Windows 7 DVD.
  • Now scroll down to CD0 and hit ENTER.

You PC should now boot from the Windows 7 DVD without any problems.

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26 Comments »

  • some_sudaka said:

    Many thanks, worked like a charm! :D

    # 4 November 2009 at 9:44 pm
  • orrin said:

    You sir are a genius! My ‘ol reliable desktop is booting up to the Win7 DVD finally. Thank you!!

    # 5 November 2009 at 6:05 am
  • Mike the crack said:

    You are the smartest cookie around, thanks :P

    # 13 November 2009 at 8:39 pm
  • Stan_27 said:

    Worked first time on an old (8 yr) HP Vectra Pentium 1.5ghz 700mb ram!
    THank YOU!!!

    # 16 November 2009 at 11:45 pm
  • Davo said:

    Nice one mate. Beat all that guff about adding boot sectors to the original image file.

    Worked like a charm.

    # 22 November 2009 at 6:37 am
  • Paul C said:

    Hi, am looking for some help, when using Smart boot manager, I can’t get the CD to run, I get the error message: Disk error! 0×01. Any ideas?

    # 1 December 2009 at 8:36 pm
  • Paul C said:

    Found out, you need to do a bios update and then go to integrated peripherals and then turn on sata, on mine it was switched off. That then recognised the hard drive and am installing windows 7 as I write!

    # 1 December 2009 at 10:24 pm
  • phoenixx1888 said:

    hey hi.. this solution is just awesome.. too too gud. i have been facing this problem and i used to follow someother method .. like using the boot of some other cd and makin windows 7 boot. this method is damm cool.. thanks a ton dude..

    # 9 December 2009 at 6:21 pm
  • Markus said:

    Very nice, just what I looked for! I got the error Disk Error! 0xAA when trying to select CD0. The fix was to change DVD drive because I had Win7 burnt on a DVD+R and that recorder did only support DVD-R.
    Markus´s last blog ..Dual boot med OS X och Ubuntu My ComLuv Profile

    # 21 December 2009 at 2:29 am
  • Windows Xp Cd-Rom Boot ERROR said:

    [...] Voor diegene met hetzelfde probleem … Heb eens gezocht en heb het volgende gevonden: Windows 7 Install: ‘Cannot boot from CD – Code 5′ Problem and Solution – Cool Tech… Volg deze instructies en uw goed geboot worden met cd-rom ;) Gelukkig nieuwjaar [...]

    # 30 December 2009 at 10:20 pm
  • CopperMich said:

    Whooot lots of thanx !!!!!

    Grtzzzz from belgium

    # 6 January 2010 at 10:53 pm
  • Someone said:

    Man.
    This works. I have an old ASrock mobo and 1GB ram. I googled for so long and everyone was giving those stupid solutions. Thanks god that I didnt burn my iso file again and waste my time.
    This thing works.
    Great.
    Thanks.
    Thanks.

    # 7 January 2010 at 7:31 am
  • Ray Workman said:

    THANK YOU !!!

    # 12 January 2010 at 6:45 pm
  • Andy said:

    Thanks!

    # 13 January 2010 at 6:20 pm
  • chrisk said:

    worked well for me
    Thanks

    # 23 January 2010 at 7:50 am
  • Alex said:

    Thanks a million….

    # 26 January 2010 at 10:19 pm
  • Jeff said:

    booting into Windows 7 now. thanks!

    # 3 February 2010 at 7:26 pm
  • Fred Parker said:

    Well ive read some drawn out complicated methods to sort this problem out but this option is the fastest and best option ive seen, works without any problems and you get a gread boot disk. Nice one,,Thanks a lot for your time.

    # 7 February 2010 at 2:48 am
  • Ash said:

    Hey, the idea is awesome but after i go through the steps up until switching cd’s to my win7 dvd and choosing CDO it says “choose a cd image” and has ‘=Lf’. Also got the error Disk Error! 0xAA.

    Someone help please =]
    thanks

    # 20 February 2010 at 9:09 am
  • keagan said:

    Thanks a lot, but yeah.. im having pretty much the same problem as Ash. I select CD0, then it asks me to select a CD image, =@f or =@f. Anyone know a solution?

    MSI K8T Neo FSR + 2gb ram

    # 23 February 2010 at 6:47 pm
  • Petar said:

    Thanks a lot :D

    # 5 March 2010 at 12:10 am
  • Steve F said:

    Many thanks for taking the trouble to post this solution…
    Worked a treat.

    Would still like to know what causes it though! I guess it wouldn’t happen if trying to install on a new empty drive (because this m/c was ok last time, when it was such a drive).

    # 7 March 2010 at 4:54 pm
  • Robert said:

    Thanks but i am having a problem here. When Smartboot Manager loads I do not see Cd0. The dvd rom is shown in my bois and it is working otherwise I would not be able to read the CD in the first place. Can anybody help me?

    # 8 March 2010 at 2:44 am
  • Paul said:

    Worked like a dream, after much frustration and wasted time trying other peoples suggestions.

    THANKS!!!!!

    # 9 March 2010 at 4:18 am
  • Robert said:

    I figured it out.. It turns out that the DVD ROM that I was using just wasn’t being recognized by the smartboot manager. It was an AOpen DVD ROM. I put in an LG DVD writer and it worked like a charm. Thanks for this method. It is much better than any other method out there. BTW. microsoft should be shot for screwing this one up. It seems that most people who have MSI or AsRock motherboards that are more than 4 years old are running into this problem. I have an AsRock that is 2 years old and Windows 7 installed without a hitch. My wife’s MSI had the Code 5 error problem. A friend of mine had the same problem as well with an MSI board. Thanks again and good luck to all those trying to overcome this glitch.

    # 10 March 2010 at 12:32 am
  • David said:

    After I go through all the steps and press Enter to boot from the Win7 DVD I get the following message, “The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does not match the computed checksum.” Any suggestions as to what I should try next? Thanks.

    # 13 March 2010 at 7:23 am

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