cannot boot from desktop CD

[Lanceren]

Hello,

I just downloaded and burned the Gutsy Gibbon desktop image onto a CD. I choose the PC (Intel x86) desktop CD, and I am installing onto an Acer laptop with Windows XP and a Celeron M (370) CPU. I've set my bios to boot from CD, and the CD does spin upon startup, but then the machine just goes into windows. Can anyone point the way and tell me where I'm going wrong. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Lanceren

[lowey23]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

G'day, Lanceren

You seem to have done things right, perhaps you just have a bad burn.

One thing you need to do when burning the ISO image is to burn it at a very slow speed (about 4X). Don't know why, you just do.

Hope this helps

Lowey

[Lanceren]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

Thanks Lowey, I did burn the CD very slow -- 1x in fact. Anyway, I'll try again later and post the results.

Cheers,

Lanceren

[Fintan]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

Have you tried any other distro's live cd?

Here are a few:
Mint: http://www.linuxmint.com/mirrors.php?id=13

PCLinux:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/index.php?o...iles&Itemid=28

Knoppix:
http://www.knoppix.org/

Mandriva:
http://www.mandriva.com/en/product/mandriva-linux-one

If one of those don't boot you have a hardware problem >

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

[dibl]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

I've set my bios to boot from CD, and the CD does spin upon startup, but then the machine just goes into windows. Can anyone point the way and tell me where I'm going wrong. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

If you haven't had experience burning bootable CDs, you may not be aware that you must "burn as ISO", or "burn CD Image", not "burn data CD". Most burning software has an option for burning ISO images, and you need to make sure and select that option prior to burning. It sounds like maybe you burned a data disk, which your PC will happily ignore on its way to booting from the hard drive.

[Fintan]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

It sounds like maybe you burned a data disk, which your PC will happily ignore on its way to booting from the hard drive.

Wow dible, I am going senile today

That would explain a lot. If you are using nero in windows you will find the burn iso option in "extras" in your "quick nero" with winoncd it is similar.

I hope that helps

[dibl]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

Wow dible, I am going senile today

That's OK -- I'll take tomorrow.

[Oz]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD


Do you already have a bootable CD (eg your Windows XP) that you can try booting from? If it boots ok then it's the CD you burnt (see above re iso). If that fails then it's either a BIOS config or hardware issue.

[Lanceren]

Re: cannot boot from desktop CD

Please ignore the last message I posted (tried to delete it but not sure if it worked), I didn't realize that some other people had replied and have not yet tried out their suggestions.

Thanks very much Fintan and Dibl for your help. Dibl you are right, I had burned the CDs as data. I'll try burning as ISO or image, and if that doesn't work then I'll take up Fintan's suggestion.

Thanks again guys.