Cannot boot from CD
 

I just recently got a new motherboard, CPU and ram. Gigabyte K8NS, AMD Athlon 64 2800+.

When I try to boot from CD, I simply hear the CD drive spinning very very fast for a long time and nothing happens. It basically hands on "Boot from CD:". I also noticed that my Primary CD drive cannot be opened after linux loads. Only before (i.e. when in BIOS). I'd like to reinstall my OS with the new hardware (maybe even try a new distro) and I also would like to set up a dual boot (win2k or XP for certain reasons) but am unable to do so because I cannot boot from CD.

I have found floppy images for a win2k boot CD but I cannot write to floppies either (I tried copying the image files to the floppy in konqueror).

Any solutions or at least causes to the problems will and are greatly appreciated.

Did you did setup the bios to boot from cd? Have you tried to install a different cd rom and/or try a different cd to bootup from?
I had a motherboard I wanted to use and had the same problem, no matter how I setup the BIOS it would not boot from CD and there was an obvious choice to boot from cd-rom. :(

I have tried the win2k disc and my slackware disc. I havent tried my FC2 discs ... maybe I can do that.

I could boot up from the kernel image floppy I made ... which is why I got the disk images for the win2k floppies, but I do not know how to make them.

I would also be stuck on how to install slackware after installing windows.

If you cannot boot from the CD, then either your boot sequence in BIOS does not go to the CD first, or the disk that you burned is corrupt. Did you run an MD5SUM on the ISO image before you burned it? -- J.W.

Yes I checked them. I have also used this disc many times. I would say I've reinstalled slack 5-10 times in the last two months (excessive ... I know).

I don't know if this question would apply to the win2k disc ... as I did not burn it. It isn't a copy, it's an actual disc.

I may be getting a few ubuntu discs in the mail from shipit.ubuntu.com (5 x86 and 5 64 bit). I can try those out ...

Of course I still need to find a way to install windows as well.

Crack open your case and make sure that you have your HDD drive(s) on the first IDE slot, and that you have your CDROM on the second IDE slot. Ensure that you have all your jumpers in the right places. Setting your solo CD drive to slave will stop it from working. Make sure these things are in order.

In addition make sure the drives data ribbon cable are connected properly. Check the motherboard manual and verify that the red stripe is closest to pin 1. Also, if using a CS cable that the blue end connects to the mother board, black is master and gray is slave.