Totally lost..Please Help..Can't Install
 

Hello,

I recieved our server and I am totally lost. It is a ibm netfinity 5500 m10 (I know it is very old but it works) It is without an operating system so I am trying to install linux. I have been trying to install mandrake linux but I cannot get the server to boot from a CD. I have gotten to where a picture comes up on the screen it looks like it is telling me to install a floppy and press F1 so I do. It reads the floppy then says the media is not working check cables. What should I do?

Mandrake is a bad server distro, use slackware, gentoo, or even LFS for that. Mandrake is an all around bad distro to use IMAOO(In Mine And Others Opinion).
You can probably skip that step cause I have never had a need for a distro specific boot floppy, just tomsrtbt rescue floppy.

If you cannot get the system to boot from the CD, most likely the problem is simply that the BIOS boot sequence is set to boot from the hard drive before the CD. To fix it, just press F2 (or whatever key is appropriate) during the bootup to get into BIOS, then make the CD-ROM the first device in the boot list. -- J.W.