Hello, I've been having issues with installing on a Dell Dimension 2350. I've tried two different distributions, Ubuntu 6.06 and Puppy Linux 2.12 -- same results.

I set the bios to boot to CD. Upon restart, the drive will (in most cases) read from the drive and then show a message along the lines of "Unable to locate boot device. Insert system disc and press F1 to retry or f2 to enter setup." I'll try a few times over and get the same result.

Here's some information on the system:
Dell Dimension 2350
Pentium 4 CPU
384 MB of RAM

insert the cd into a working computer and see if it contains the *.iso file or if it burned the image. if there is only the .iso file on the cd then the iso was copied but its image was not burned.

I checked and the images have been properly burned.

I have a Dell Dimension 2350 as well and was able to install both Ubuntu and Kubuntu without a problem. Sounds like you've put the disk in the wrong drive if you have two of them. My machine has two CD drives and configuring the BIOS to boot to the CD usually means my CD-RW drive. Hope this helps.

I have two drives, HOWEVER, only one functions. I've disconnected the first -- DVD drive, I think it was -- long ago. Must I do something in BIOS to point out that it should read from the CDRW drive?

Dell tends to use the CS (cable select) setting for their drives. If your first drive was a DVD and you unplugged it, then the CD-ROM is still in the slave position on the cable. While it would still function in general use, the bios may not recognize it as a bootable device.

You can try moving the jumper on the drive to the MASTER position, or move the cable so that the end connector plugs into the CD-ROM, not the middle connector.

I still keep a 2350 around with dual boot XP Pro/MEPIS

Feel free to answer before I trial/error my way out of this one, but here are some photographs I just took:

The IDE cable

"Drive 0" was once seated in the now disfunctioning DVD drive, I've placed it into the CDRW drive. It is the only IDE cable given to the CD media devices. There is also a floppy cable and hard drive cable.

The Jumpers

oh someone shoot me now I haven't the right screwdrivers to properly disassemble the case >_<

Anyway, the drive to the lefthand side of the image is the DVD drive, nonworking. The one below it is the CDRW drive. I removed the jumper and I tried the middle position, no dice. Looks like the first position is cable select and the third is master. Here goes nothing--

Moved the IDE Device 0 to CDRW, set the jumper to master, let BIOS update information--still back to same "No boot device detected" message.

I wonder if your cable is bad. if you have a spare IDE cable, try that. If not, use the cable from your hard drive. You won't need it just to test the CDRW. You should be able to boot from the CD without a hard drive present in the system.

A bad cable may also explain the bad DVD-R.

Oh, you also shouldn't need a screwdriver to remove the optical drives. You just need something to nudge the plastic clips in the front bezel to remove it, then the drives will slide right out the front.

Well, the hard drive IDe was too short, so I simply swapped the two IDE cables and instructed the BIOS to boot to Hard Drive. It looks like the swapped IDE is just fine, I'm doing a few things in Windows to make sure things are working smoothly.

So I guess it boils down to the CD media drive, huh? :[ I was hoping it wouldn't come to this, because I am fresh out of money (college student).