Hi everybody!

This is my scenario:
I have a used computer I bought through my work and am currently running a Dutch Win XP Home Ed that I installed from a Dell recovery disc that I borrowed from my roommate. My computer, however, is a Fujitsu and is not "linked" in any way to this recovery disc.
I formatted my computer to install Debian but I´m having some troubles with my cd-drives. There is one in the computer but I´m not ture if it reads DVD´s. I also have an external DVD player/burner (I´m trying to install from an official Debian DVD). I tried to experiment with the master/slave settings of my two cd drives but I´m not very good at this BIOS stuff so all I got was the "NTLDR missing" error message.

Can anyone tell me how I make the computer boot from my USB DVD reader? Is it possible?
I have of course changed the boot order in BIOS to make it boot from the cd-rom drive before the hard drive, but I still can´t get it to work.

Thank you!

If you didn´t understand my message (I´m not super-good at this kind of stuff) just ask me to explain...

LaLina

"NTLDR missing" has no, nothing to do with bios or linux, that is a windows error. Are you sure you really formatted your installation ? Seems like instead of booting on the DVD, you're booting on a broken windows installation.
Anyway, the debian installer can format the hdd, you don't have "prepare" it.
You should boot from your internal drive (=> change your bios settings). If it's a DVD drive, be happy, if it's a cd-rom drive, burn a cd image to install debian.
It's actually possible to boot from a usb drive, but can be difficult : you may have to make a new initrd image, change the root directory, etc. If you are totally new to linux it may be somewhat difficult.

++

LaLina,

You have to get into the BIOS setup program in order to change the boot device order. I'm not certain what key enables the program on your particular model, but it should be the "delete" key,
F1 key, F2 key, or maybe the F10 key. Once you determine the proper key, hold it down while the computer is booting and it will let you into the setup program so that you may set the CD/DVD drive first in the order.

Regarding the NTLDR error, you may have hosed the Master Boot Record when you tried to setup your harddisk to receive Linux. It sounds like you're attempting to complete a multi OS installation on one hard drive. If I'm correct, you need to go to www.crazytrain.com and download Tom Rude's whitepaper on this subject. It's very well done and will walk you through the process.

Good luck.

Alright, thanks both of you guys!
Now I think I understand what the problem might be. The Crazytrain website looked really good but I will probably not partition my current hard drive for several OS´s since it´s only 12GB. I want to get the fricking Windows OFF my harddrive and get Linux IN. So I think that tip about burning a CD image of the DVD might be the solution because my computer apparently can´t boot from my USB DVD drive.

Thanks once again, I´ll keep you posted on the progress...!
LaLina