I downloaded the Ubuntu OS, unzipped it, burnt it to a CDRW, restarted the PC, the computer starts reading the CD Drive, but it stops and XP starts up. What could be wrong? The size of the Ubuntu is 581MB, could a file be missing. I got the OS from this site http://www.osdir.com/Downloads+index...e-Ubuntu.phtml

Check your BIOS is set to boot the CD first

Also, check to make sure didn't just copy the .iso image file - how did you burn it?

If it's neither of these, then you could do an md5sum check for integrity.

Yes the cd drive is set as first boot device. It was not in the form of an image, it was zipped, so i unzipped it and burnt the contents in it.

How is this done?

Hmm, if it was burnt from a zipped archive, then an md5sum check may not be appropriate. Usually you run an md5sum check on downloaded files from ftp or http sites. Basically it's just a check for file integrity. You check the md5sum of the file you downloaded and compare it with an official md5sum for that particular file. If they match exactly, then it's exactly the same file. If not, it's probably corrupted. You could check from where you dowloaded it to see if there's an official md5sum for the file you downloaded, but I kinda doubt it. If you do find one, the way to check the md5sum of the file you downloaded is with
$ md5sum -c /file
Anyhow, I'm not sure what else to suggest...............bad burn? Probably not though.

http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/howtoburn.html

Alternately, you miight read > http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/

Well there is a file in there called mbsum, here are some of the contents.

I think Windows must have changed that filename from .torrent, or .iso, to .zip

What link did you select to download Ubuntu? You can either get it as an .iso
image of a .bittorrent, but not a .zip file. They explain how to get it, and hot to
make an image, on the Unbuntu website.

I got it from http://us.releases.ubuntu.com/releases/5.04/, then I clicked Intel x86 under "Install Cd".

That's a .iso file. It's an image file. You can burn this image to a disc so that it will contain directories and stuff on it using nero in windows and a few other programs that I can't remember. If you just burn the .iso file though, it won't work.

Check out this site

http://iso.snoekonline.com/iso.htm

The file that downloads is named ubunut-5.0.4-install-i386.iso
I think Windoze has messed you up. If you don't have that file
on your computer, which is probably close to 700MB, then start
the download again. You can also get a BitTorrent image )per
the instructions above). After you get the .iso image, then verify
the md5sum (per instructions in a link above) and then burn a
bootable CD (per instructions above).

In Windoze instead of just clicking on the link to download, you
might need to right-click and select Save as... so that you can
give it the proper filename.

ubuntu-5.04-install-i386, thats the name of the file so i believe its the correct one I have.

You gotta have .iso as the file extension, not .zip. Now, perhaps
you have .iso and Windoze just unzipped it somehow? Since I'm
using Slackware I really can't tell you what Windoze would do. If
you read at the ISOLinux link, it tells you how to check and burn
a bootable CD from an iso image. Link above ^^^

ok i'll give it a try.

Hey i had this problem when i first tried to intstall ubuntu. The problem is that WinZip and similar programs like WinRAR all view the iso file as something to be unzipped when in fact it isnt. If you save the file to your windows computer and try to burn it to a cd without a separate burning program windows will still burn the file incorrectly even if it is left "unzipped". You need to burn the cd using a burning program that can burn a data mirroring cd. After looking around on ubuntu's website i found this info on a program called INFRARECORDER. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto. Once i burnt the cd using infrarecoder(which is free by the way) the computer would boot the disk on startup.

A lot of drives that will boot from CDRs won't boot from CDRWs, seen this with two or three different drives new and old. If all else looks well, burn it to a proper CDR.

Cheers

Pete