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Can't run XP install CD on Mint

I recently installed Mint 9 in place of XP on a spare PC. I removed the XP partition entirely as opposed to keeping a dual boot setup for until I got everything working on the Linux side (didn't realize that the old drivers might come in handy, being a newbie).

At the moment, I have neither Ethernet nor Wireless working on my PC and troubleshooting it using sneakernet is getting time-consuming, so I'm thinking the simplest thing at this point is to reinstall XP, copy the relevant Windows drivers, reinstall Mint and use the Windows drivers with NDISWrapper.

The only problem is that when I try to reboot to the XP CD, nothing happens even though the BIOS is set to boot from CD first. I see the "Boot from CD" message and the drive spins, but eventually Mint loads normally.

Installing a new OS over the existing one this way has worked fine on this PC using DVDs I burned for FreeBSD, Ubuntu and then Mint, so I'm a little confused.

What do I need to do to get the XP CD to run from inside Linux?

Thanks in advance.

You don't run the disc from Linux, when you reboot the computer and see the message about "Boot from CD", that is your system's BIOS. It loads before the OS, and would show the same message even if the drive was blank. Whatever is causing the CD not to boot is not going to be an issue with Mint, but likely a problem with the disc or drive itself.

As for your proposed solution to the driver problem, I can't say it sounds very good. NDISWrapper is really a last resort, as it's the worst possible solution for Linux drivers, and there is an excellent chance it won't work for you at all. Even if NDISWrapper ends up working for you, it would be infinitely easier to download the Windows driver's for those specific devices than installing XP and attempting to copy out the Microsoft drivers.

What is the Ethernet and WLAN hardware in this machine? I have never heard of an Ethernet that was completely unsupported in Linux, much less one that required NDISWrapper to function. There are still a few WLAN chipsets which can be problematic, but still, it's been a long time since I heard of one that could only work through NDISWrapper.

The Windoze installer won't work (as in it silently fails) if there is no free space and only linux partitions. There is nothing wrong with the CD, but it just quits
Make some space (with gparted say), or just delete the Mint partitions - all done from a liveCD.

Get a later Mint edition too - may support your hardware better.

It sounds like your Windows CD is defective/scratched. Your computer tries to boot from CD-ROM and then fails and goes to the next drive on the boot order list, your hard drive with Mint.

Linux is loaded after the BIOS of your computer so this is probably not a Mint-related issue.

I would take the issue up with the retailer who sold you the Windows CD and/or with Microsoft.

(edit) I did not see syg00's suggestion above; I was not aware of this bug in the Windows installer, but it sounds like a promising lead, good luck! :)

I ran into this issue before many moons ago.
I have no idea why my system at the time was not booting to CD.
It was the same situation you are having but was quite a long time ago on an older system.

I do remember what I did to fix "my issue".

I booted into a Linux command prompt.
Than I did

Code:

fdisk /dev/hda

or most likely

Code:

fdisk /dev/sda

for your hard drive.

Than press m for options.

P to list all of your partitions. You will see your linux system there.
D to delete partitions.... than D 1 for partition 1 etc...
W to write the changes...
E to exit
Reboot

You should have a fresh hard drive to start your installation of windows now.
And your machine can not possibly boot to Linux as it is no longer there.

I used this and it worked for me. I keep a Knopix CD on hand to get me into a command prompt for emergency problems if I need it.

Also I would wait as I am sure somebody will chime in with a alternative solution and they may say I'm crazy.

I never have found out why this happens. I just removed the problem. The linux boot partition.

Thanks, MS3FGX and everyone else (that was fast!).

I see what you mean about NDISWrapper not being a silver bullet. As I said, I'm a newbie and having wasted a lot of time futzing around with files via USB without getting either of these dang things to work that I'm desperate and willing to try anything.

From the terminal, I ran:

Code:

lspci

and the last 2 entries were:

Code:

04:07.0 Ethernet controller: D-Link System Inc RTL8139 Ethernet (rev 10)

04:08.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless (rev 03)

Running

Code:

sudo lshw -C network

gave the following:

Code:

*-network:0 

 description: Ethernet interface

 product: RTL8139 Ethernet

 Vendor: D-Link System Inc

 physical id: 7

 bus info: pci@0000:04:07.0

 logical name: eth0

 version: 10

 serial: 00:40:05:35:a8

 size: 10MB/s

 capacity: 100MB/s

 width: 32 bits

 clock: 33MHz

 capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation

 configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.28 duplex=half latency=32 link=no maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 multicast=yes port=MII speed=10MB/s

 resources: irq:16 ioport:bc00(size=256) memory: fdbfe000-fdbfe0ff



*-network:1 UNCLAIMED 

 description: Ethernet controller

 product: 88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless

 Vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.

 physical id: 9

 bus info: pci@0000:04:09.0

 logical name: eth0

 version: 03

 width: 32 bits

 clock: 66MHz

 capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list 

 configuration: latency=32 

 resources: memory:fdbe000-fdbeffff memory:fdbd0000-fdbdffff

When I run:

Code:

sudo ifconfig eth0 up

I get no error.

When I run

Code:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up

I get

Code:

wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device

Finally, when I run

Code:

sudo lshw -short | grep network

I get

Code:

/0/10/7  eth0  network  RTL8139

/0/10/8        network  88w8335 [Libertas] 802.11b/g Wireless

[Sorry if some of that was redundant info.]

Does this mean that my ethernet card is working? This PC isn't too far from another PC which does have Internet access. Should I try running a a LAN cable to share its connection? Would that allow me to download the needed wireless driver?

When I run the System --> Hardware Drivers app, I'm told that no proprietary drivers are in use and all I see are NVIDIA graphics drivers. Shouldn't that wireless card be listed here?

Thanks

Quote:

Originally Posted by syg00 (Post 4559013)

I chose older version because it's an older machine (Aspire E360 w 1 Gig of RAM) and when I installed the latest version of Ubuntu it regularly froze up.

I didn't try the current version of Mint, figuring it would have roughly the same requirements as Ubuntu. Could the latest version of Mint run fine with this RAM?

Thanks.

Well looking at that, I'd expect your wired ethernet (eth0) to be operational. Does ifconfig show it as having obtained an ip address ?.
What is doing the addresses - a DHCP server on a router or somesuch ?.

That Libertas does look iffy. Been way too many years since I even looked at NDISWrapper - and even then I managed to avoid it.

As for current Mint on a Gig, should work - slowish maybe. I'm actually very impressed with Bodhi on a under configured netbook; but even that happily runs (full) Ubuntu.