DVD drive stopping computer booting? Or am I mad?

[Josquius]

My windows 7 install is old. I haven't reformatted since I first got my computer. Startup is slow.
However today...I tried to startup and it just wouldn't go. It got stuck on boot up. Usually on bios (though I had a full screen image covering it usually, had to turn that off for my final try) though once on the windows icon.
I noticed this final try...that it was just after bios had checked my DVD drive that it paused.
So I tried unhooking my DVD drive and....sure enough after a while it started up.

Now. It seems windows applied a lot of updates today. That would be a contributer to a slow startup. But it really seems my DVD drive was somehow contributing to everything going so slow.

How is this possible? How is my DVD drive stopping my computer from booting? Am I just imaging things and this couldn't be to blame?
The drive was working just fine last I checked. Curious.

[viper37]

never heard of it.  But if it's working fine now, try re-plugging it and see if it's slow/won't boot.  If it does, then there's a problem with this DVD drive, just change it.

[DontSayBanana]

My windows 7 install is old. I haven't reformatted since I first got my computer. Startup is slow.
However today...I tried to startup and it just wouldn't go. It got stuck on boot up. Usually on bios (though I had a full screen image covering it usually, had to turn that off for my final try) though once on the windows icon.
I noticed this final try...that it was just after bios had checked my DVD drive that it paused.
So I tried unhooking my DVD drive and....sure enough after a while it started up.

Now. It seems windows applied a lot of updates today. That would be a contributer to a slow startup. But it really seems my DVD drive was somehow contributing to everything going so slow.

How is this possible? How is my DVD drive stopping my computer from booting? Am I just imaging things and this couldn't be to blame?
The drive was working just fine last I checked. Curious.

Does your mobo have an onboard speaker?  If not, it might have halted with a beep code that you couldn't hear (I suspect this happened- probably halted with a beep code for peripheral error).  Other than that, viper's advice is good, try a boot now that it's definitely working and see if the drive messes with it.

[Josquius]

I think I may be mistaken....the issue could actually have been my ipod plugged in at the time. WIll see next  time I have to use a DVD and reconnect my drive (sometime this year I'm sure)