Unable to install distro on clean drive
 

Ok, so old laptop (Acer) went to acting like it had snail butt for propulsion so I decided to wipe the drive and give it to Goodwill. I
know, nice guy, yada yada. So anyway not wanting to spend money, I went looking and found the free version of Dariks B and N.
Used a downloaded version of Dban. It ran its course and finished with a Blannco splash screen that would not go away. So I
pulled the disk and decided to load Slackware 14.1. Started getting error PXE-E61, followed by PXE-M0F blinking on and off. So I
thought maybe it did not quite finish, so I let Dban run another couple hours, and again with the Blannco screen, ugly color
scheme by the way, and tried to install Slack. Same crap. I have tried everything, I think the disk is bootable, went in and re-arranged boot list to fit, but same thing. The drive is turning, and I am only getting this error. At first I thought maybe a HDD detection problem but no errors indicating that. Any ideas?

I haven't a clue what your error is. Can you post the exact error message and when It occurs. Can you give us some detail on your box and also mention which distro you are installing?

Ok so you ran Dariks Boot & Nook to wipe the HDD.
Thought you gave that to Goodwill.

Run this command and post the output for our Guru so he knows more about your machine.
What is the output of:
I looked up the "PXE-E61" Error and I found that it is in regard to your computer looking for a network boot device.
http://askville.amazon.com/resolve-P...uestId=1248801

The "PXE-MOF" Error is associated with a bootable device problem. There is more than one explaination; BTW, for this error online
PXE errors are generated by the network boot ROM. In other words, the boot process is attempting a network boot (your BIOS' 4th boot option), which means that your system was unable to boot from a HDD, CD-ROM, or USB device (the first 3 boot options).
http://www.daniweb.com/hardware-and-...e-m0f-problems

Your bios is set to booot from pxe first, so you have to move it down on the list & move cdrom or usb to first position.

It can also mean no (bootable) device found - I think it even tells you this. This is different to it finding a device with no boot-loader code on it.

I had similar happen after a Ubuntu update years ago on a Toshiba laptop - have seen other posts reporting similar. Only way I could boot was to make a boot floppy; no USB. Was a while ago.
Ran fine off the hard disk once booted.

Never did find the reason, nor the resolution - tossed it out after getting sick of having to remember the boot command line.

That's definately a possibility.
I should've stated
The last time I got the message was when I played around in bios.