Installing Fedora on HP pavillion with Win XP
 

I'm having a strange problem with my laptop (HP Pavillion N5470). The cd/dvd drive doesn't seem to be working at all. I've just installed Windows XP and would like to just wipe it away and use Linux. I have the book Linux for Non-Geeks and it comes with CD's. Well...since my cd drive doesn't seem to be working, what do I do? I created a boot disk and tried to boot from my floppy drive. This works but I still need to get the CD drive working so it can see the install files. Also when I change the boot order in the BOIS to the cd drive it doesn't even try and boot from the cd in the drive. It boot from the floppy drive just fine.

What do I do? Anyone know? Also when I'm in Windows XP the cd drive doesn't work either.

Sounds like a hardware problem.

See if you can get your CD drive to work in Windows by typing "devmgmt.msc" at the command prompt.
Then check the DVD/CD-Rom drives category. If there is a problem with it (there will be an exclamation mark) try unistalling it and then reinstalling... ->actions->scan for new hardware.

Thanks. It says "This device is working properly." LOL! But I did uninstall and reinstall anyway. No luck. I'm thinking it's just dead because it doesn't sound right when it tries to spin the disk. The computer is 5 years old.
But the drive did work about a week ago when I installed XP. Hmmm...??? Anything else I can try?? Thanks again for your help. I really want to become a Pinguinista!

Not sure how easy this is, but check this out:
marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html

you can also get linux distributions that boot from usb, but i think you need a newer computer for this.

or...
try a network install(maybe easier)debian has instructions here:
www.debian.org/distrib/netinst

..i'm not sure about Fedora. but try here
http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/fedora...-guide-en/fc4/
this link has instructions for usb installation

wow thanks. i have a nice development machine running XP right next to this old laptop (and I would install Linux on this machine but i created a dynamic disk with a second hard drive and you can't partition it after you do that). Thanks I'll try to install acorss a network. I was just going to borrow an external drive from someone but perhaps I won't have to. Will let you know what happens...thanks again.