Can't Install From Boot Disk..please help!

FrenetiC · 09-30-2005, 01:00 AM

ok, i have an HP pavilion ze4300 notebook pc and i was going to install Linux on it.. i have no operating system installed on it at the moment. i downloaded Debian Linux from Linux.org onto my desktop pc, and i made a boot disk from it...
however, it will not boot from this disk. i have never installed Linux before, and used Windows before, which started up automatically from the disk i got, but this time i made the disk myself.
i simply unzipped the files i downloaded and put the onto the disk, is there something else needing to be done for it to properly boot from the disk?
i also tried booting from it on my desktop, but it will not. i have changed the boot order so it SHOULD boot from the CD drive first, but it won't seem to do that.
any help would be appreciated!

abisko00 · 09-30-2005, 04:47 AM

I am not familiar with the debian bootdisk, however usually you download a disk-image, that needs to be written on a medium with a special software. Simply copying the files may not result in something bootable.

In case of ISO images, you can use most available CD burning software (e.g. Nero). Use the 'Burn Image' function of this software to create the CD. For floppy-disks you can use rawwrite to write the image under Windows/DOS.

jglen490 · 09-30-2005, 10:35 AM

Quote:

i simply unzipped the files i downloaded and put the onto the disk, is there something else needing to be done for it to properly boot from the disk?

What did you download from linux.org? I don't think that site has any distros. All that I've seen as a download there is the kernel.

The best thing to do would be to go to linuxiso.org and download an actual set of ISO images, then burn the ISO (1 or more) to CD. They have a pretty good set of instructions for this.

FrenetiC · 10-01-2005, 02:43 PM

i downloaded what i'm assuming was the ISO images, unzipped the file and burned them to disk, but still wouldn't boot from it =/
is there any way to install it without the disk? like, just load it off my harddrive and install it onto another drive? i have the harddrive of my laptop hooked up to my computer right now, in an external case

abisko00 · 10-02-2005, 07:24 AM

Quote:

i downloaded what i'm assuming was the ISO images, unzipped the file and burned them to disk, but still wouldn't boot from it =/

The "unzipping" part is what you've done wrong! An ISO file has to be written to disk with a special function, usually called 'Burn Image'. Do not create a data CD from the unzipped ISO file, since the booting information will be missing.