Won't boot to Fedora install CD on Windows XP
 

This is my first experience with Linux. I want to dual-boot WinXP and Linux, but when I try to boot to the CD drive with disc 1 of Fedora in it (yes, the ISO), it tries to read it for about 5 seconds, then tells me to press F1 to retry or press F2 for settings.

Try Booting a Different CD
 

First thing I would try is booting from a known-good CD ( such as the one you used to install Windows XP ) just to see if the problem is with your computer or with the Fedora Core 1 CD1. I had problems burning the Fedora ISO's to CD properly, in fact I redownloaded the image files after my first attempt failed. I still went through about 7 CDR's before I got them all to work.

Run md5sum program first. Write at very low speed. 1X is prefer but if your CD-R drive lowest speed is 4X you can go at that speed. The reason why is because higher speeds vibrates the disc and this adds distortion to pits during write mode.

Set the BIOS to safe-fail settings. Also let the BIOS set the IRQs for the devices.