Realtek boot agent issue?

On HP Pavilion laptop with XP SP3, I have been unable to boot from CD despite changing the startup sequence in BIOS. On every attempt the system reverts to Windows as if it did not recognize the bootable disk. I notice Realtek Boot Agent listed, with exclamation mark next to it, and do not see a way how to disable it should it be the cause of trouble. I want to wipe the HD with DBAN but the system keeps avoiding it somehow. Tried a Ubuntu installation CD instead, to same effect. Any ideas or advice?

Try pressing F11 or F12 at boot, see if that bring up a boot selection menu. If not, what is the Pavilion laptop model number? Maybe the Users Guide will help figure this out.

On this zd7010ea model, pressing ESC on startup offers CHANGE BOOT ORDER: past the basic info screen, it takes me to a blank, with cursor blinking, no prompt & no reaction to keyboard strokes. Shortly after, Windows would start up as usual. F12 boots from LAN; no good. F10, which I am left with and have used repeatedly, takes me to SETUP where I have changed the boot order, with CD-ROM at the top now. I am unable to format the C-drive, either. As another step, I have uninstalled most programmes & files, cleansed the HD and & defragmented it before making further attempts.

According to the Users Guide found here: Manuals for HP Pavilion zd7010EA Notebook PC, you do not need to press any key, the Optical drive should detect the presence of a bootable disc and should prompt you with the "Press any key to boot from CD".

All I can surmise from this is the optical drive is not working correctly, at least as a BIOS boot device.

If you're sure the XP and Ubuntu discs are bootable then the only alternative I can come up with at the moment is to remove the hard drive from the laptop and either install it another laptop and wipe it there or buy a 2.5" to 3.5" HDD adapter kit and mount the laptop drive in a desktop system and wipe it there.

I got one from GoHarddrive.com recently for $9.99 and it works well.

G05-0081 2.5" Notebook Hard Drive to 3.5" Desktop Hard Drive Bay Mounting Bracket Kit / Adapter 1 $9.99 $9.99

The real problem is, how are you going to reinstall XP if you can't boot a CD? You could try creating a bootable USB XP Install flash drive. I did this and it worked for me with a Dell Mini 910 that had no optical drive. You could also borrow an external USB optical drive and use that to try to install from.

Bootland.net - install XP from USB
Windows in you pocket - TomsHardware.com

I would do the above first so you know you have a way to reinstall before wiping the drive.

Thanks for all the suggestions - very useful. Since the optical drive works fine otherwise, I am going to check first that the bootable CDs work on other computers. If not, the conclusion would be obvious.

Good luck, Let me know how you make out please.

Ah, it was the disks, both improperly burnt on another machine. Ultimately trivial, but that is what happens. Exchanging information was extremely helpful here since it nudged me all right, so thanks again!

Well done! Let me know how you make out.

OK, Ubuntu 9.10 is already up and running, which unfortunately takes the matter out of this particular forum. Having perhaps unwisely skipped the DBAN stage and installed straight over XP, I get Disk Utility warnings on startup that the 40 Giga HD has many bad sectors and should be replaced. I am inclined to ignore it for the time being since everything runs smoothly and on closer inspection, there are just two issues, namely reallocated and current pending sector counts. The Disk Utility looks nice, but might be a trifle overzealous I suspect. So, generally, up and running, with a caveat.