Can Not Boot From CD
 

Hi Everyone :) I have a problem with my live Mepis CD
I have downloaded .iso and asked my neighbor to burn disc image for me because my burner just refuses to work anymore.
The slowest speed he could burn at was 24x. However my main problem is going into BIOS and changing boot order from hard drive to "boot from cd".
As each time I try to do this and save before exiting,it seems to go back to it's previous state :( Does anyone know how to set this up the proper way so I can try out the cd ?
I have checked the md5 and this seems to be correct so there shouldn't be any problems with it if I can ever get it to run :) Any help would be most gratefully appreciated.

Did your neighbor actually burn the file as an image, or did he just burn the file to a data CD? Check it out with whatever OS you are currently running on the computer... If you just see the .iso on the disc, he did it wrong. Can your neighbor boot from the CD?

As for your BIOS setting, there isn't much more to tell you. Enter BIOS, set the boot order, exit saving changes, and it should work. Is your clock battery dead? If it is, the computer might be losing BIOS changes when it powers off / reboots.

What he said -- those are the 2 most likely problems.

4 semi-random thoughts:

1. What OS was your neighbor using? -- Does he understand the difference between burning an .iso to make a bootable disk, & just burning a data disk. IF he is using an M$ OS & has trouble figuring the difference out, then let us know which OS & which burning s/w & we will try to provide pointers.
   
   Does "checked the md5" mean the md5 of:
   1. checked the md5 of the .iso
   2. verified the md5 of the disk post-burn
   3. both
   
   
2. What is your h/w?
   
   
3. Can you change any other BIOS settings & have them "stick"?
   
   
4. Have you considered just buying a new burner?

(1) My neighbor makes TV commercials for a living and so he has some pretty fancy hardware on his main PC's most of which are MAC's by the way.
However he burned this on a secondary WindowsXP PC that he has using Nero Burning 6. I explained to him exactly what I wanted and it did take a little while for him to find the right setting but it seemed to go ok.
(2)I have actually only checked the md5 of the original file I downloaded
to the USB stick at a site called www.hashsum.com/ and it is as follows: 91573e7d25b655ea8733ecb398e70b43 which I got from a Linux site linked to yours I think :)
(3)I haven't as yet looked at the md5 on the burnt disc as yet because I haven't figured out how to do it :(
(4)My neighbor hasn't tried booting from the disc and I don't think I'd ask him to on one of his main computers.
(5)I don't usually go into BIOS and mess around with that stuff because I was once told by a very good PC friend that that way madness lies,In fact he once said to me that in all his years I was the only person he'd met that had lost the file command.com from his pc :( The very first year that I had this beastie he had to format it about 9 times because of all the damage I'd done to the registry :(
(6)The reason I want to try Linux is so that I can get a whole bunch of new hardware as I don't want to go through all that re-validating crap again.
(7)Hardware and OS is as follows :
Computer: Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition OS Service Pack Service Pack 3
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)



Motherboard:
CPU Type AMD Athlon XP, 2000 MHz (15 x 133) 2400+
Motherboard Name MSI KM3M-V (MS-7061) / KM4M-L (MS-6734 v1) / KM4AM-L (MS-6734 v2) / MS-6786
Motherboard Chipset VIA UniChrome KM266 Pro / KM400(A) / KN400(A)
System Memory 1024 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (02/16/05)
Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400 (Microsoft Corporation) (64 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce2 MX/MX 400
Monitor LG L1710S [17" LCD] (130451322)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter C-Media CMI8738/C3DX Audio Device
Audio Adapter VIA AC'97 Enhanced Audio Controller

Storage:
IDE Controller VIA Bus Master IDE Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive WDC WD800JB-00FMA0 (74 GB, IDE)
Disk Drive WD 3200AAJ External USB Device (298 GB, USB)
Disk Drive Maxtor OneTouch USB Device (465 GB)
Optical Drive PIONEER DVD-ROM DVD-103R (6x/32x DVD-ROM)
Optical Drive SONY CD-RW CRX140E (8x/4x/32x CD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 76308 MB (60229 MB free)
G: (NTFS) 305242 MB (274066 MB free)
H: (NTFS) 476937 MB (474328 MB free)
Total Size 838.4 GB (789.7 GB free)

Sorry about all the lengthy stats but you did ask and I have a program on here called "Everest Home Edition" which can tell you all this stuff but doesn't seem to be available for download anymore :(
I've started compiling a list of all new hardware that I want and it's starting to look pretty good at the moment and so far it's worth about $800AUS without labor and a few other goodies:)
I hope that you guys can help me with my problem as I'd really like to try Linux as soon as possible.Thanks heaps for answering my previous question so quickly and I hope everyone had a fantastic 4th July.

Well :) I went to the PC shop the other day ( 06/24/09 ) along with my shopping list :) I also took the memory stick with Mepis .iso on it and the CD that my neighbor had burnt for me. After discussing various bits and pieces I planned to buy and changing my list a bit :) I asked the shop-owner if he could try my disc out. He popped it into a spare PC and it proceeded to boot up to the Linux screen. So now I know that works and asked why it wouldn't on my machine?
He said it could either be the bios,registry problem or overheating and would have a look when I took it into the shop which will be tomorrow ( 06/27/09 )Since I will be changing M/board,Ram,Video Chip (9500GT 512MB DDR3),New case with New fan and power supply plus a new Cd/Burner drive these problems shouldn't exist anymore.
So in advance I'd like to thank everyone who's answered my questions and hopefully I'll be joining you soon as a new member of the "Linux Club"
Best wishes to all and see you next time I'm on these forums :)

On some older PCs, the setting could be changed, but would not "stick".
& on even older PCs, there was no setting to boot from a cd...

Good luck, & please keep us posted (excuse the pun ;)) on your progress -- especially if you need more help.

10 days later -- any luck, what progress?

Can not boot from CD
 

Hi "Archtoad" :) Yes it's been about 10 days now and I have got the CD to boot from the drive. Obviously my old Cd-Rom drive did not have that option but now things are looking good.
I've been looking at "Simply Mepis 8.0.06" and while it has some interesting stuff on it,I'm really not sure I'll be using it.I still have to figure out how to burn an .iso file on "Nero 8" because while the layout is simpler :) it's harder to find the way to do it properly.
I've downloaded a copy of "Ubuntu" and as soon as I can figure out how to burn it,I'll try that.
Thanks heaps for the email and I will certainly keep you up to date with what's going on with Linux in my household :)
I'll be disappearing from here for about a fortnight starting from the 9th of September because a friend of mine has invited me to go on a fishing trip with him and I'm looking forward to that :)
Thanks again for all your effort in helping me with this and a big smiley from me to all the members of the forum.
Your apprentice penguin "Captain Merlot"

Hi everyone :)I've been using Ubuntu 9.04 now for about three weeks and it seems to be working ok though that "Evolution" email program is a bit strange.I think I'm really going to have to have a good look at the "help file" on that one :( Everything that comes in automatically goes into the "junk email" folder :( I think I'll be heading over to one of the Ubuntu forums from now on to see if I can get some specific help on a few small things.I reckon in about a year though I'll throw "WinXP" out the door along with the bath water :) Thanks again for all your help here :0