BIOS won't boot from external dvd drive

The external dvd drive (5.25" dvd drive in an enclosure) is connected to my laptop via eSata. I went into the BIOS and had the dvd drive boot as first priority. I inserted the ubuntu live cd, but it keeps booting to Windows. The disc is clean.

Does it work under eSata?

 

Try via USB.

Also see if you have an additional option for "external drive boot" - I have on my Vaio, so even if I moved an external drive up (which I do not need to) I still have the "external drive boot"-option.

 

I tried USB and it didn't work. I don't have that option unfortunately. I suspect the BIOS doesn't support booting off of external dvd drives. I can boot from USB drives, but not external dvd drives.

Edit: I just had the chance to test this on my brother's computer. His BIOS supports booting off of external dvd drives. So it's definitely my notebook's BIOS's problem. Shame on Dell for not implementing this option. I updated the BIOS, but it still didn't work. Guess I'll have to bug Dell for it.

 

I don't know which Dell model you have... but my Dell supports booting from USB.

Press F12 at the Dell splash screen... this should give you a boot menu so you can see all the devices you can boot from.

Also, if that doesn't work, check dell.com > Support > Drivers and downloads section to see if there's a newer BIOS for your system.

It's probably looking for an internal DVD drive... forget the boot priority order, and just use the F12 boot menu instead... much easier and it shows you all the boot options.

 

The F12 boot menu is the same as the ones in the BIOS minus the floppy. Thanks anyways. I've already updated the bios to the latest version, but it didn't do anything.