I've tried to boot from cd/dvd several times on my AMD 64 dual core 4200+, but my cd drives aren't recognized by my BIOS. I think this is because they're attached to a Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card on a MSI K9N Platinum motherboard. If I try to change the boot order in the American Megatrends BIOS the cd/dvd drives just don't show up in the list. I've build several of my own computers and installed linux several times on several different machines, but this just makes me bang my head against a wall. If I try to google for the problem i mostly find sites to buy the adapter card, but I couldn't find any solutions for my problem.

If anybody has the same hardware or has a solution or hint for this, that would be grately appreciated. I've been trying to unload windows from this box for several months now and being unable to even boot from a live cd is really driving me mad

Thanks

I dealt with a Promise controller that wouldn't recognize optical drives. I re-cabled to put one optical drive on a motherboard IDE channel, and put one of the internal HDs on the PCI controller. That allowed me to select and boot the optical drive. Once Linux booted, it recognized everything, so it was a BIOS issue.

O thanks. I just didn't think of that. But I'm quite positive it will work. I don't know why I didn't think of that, because I had done some similar stuff before. Ouch, I feel kind of stupid right now. I will have to get a new IDE cable though, an old flat one, because I have those round compact ones and they just can't reach there.

Thank you very, very much. You have been of great help.

Have a nice day.

Edit: I eventually solved it by booting from an external dvd-rw drive(usb). My dad had one lying around which he didn't use anymore...