Why should a machine not boot liveCD if HD fails?

[Rick Stevens]

Mike Cloaked wrote:
> In the past few days as some will know from a previous thread I had a total
> failure of a machine that is now resolved after replacing the hard drive -
> however one thing puzzles me - why would a computer with a failed SATA hard
> drive be unable to boot from a liveDVD in the optical drive?
> 
> Maybe this is a suitable mystery to solve as we come to Halloween!

Depends on HOW the drive died.  It may have died in a manner that hangs
the SATA controller and the bus as a consequence.  That used to be a
problem with SCSI back in the "good ol' days" on occasion.  Open 
collector drivers and tristate buffers only work if everyone cooperates,
after all.
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- Rick Stevens, Systems Engineer                      ricks at nerd.com -
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- Millihelen, adj: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. -
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