I have been running Linux for about 12 years and it seems every time I want to try a new distro, I download the ISO, check it with md5 sum. Checks the same, then I burn it at 4x or 8x, and it verifies.
Next I try to boot from the dvd and it won't.. Just tried to go back to Mint, used it a couple years ago and liked it, Had trouble with updates killing the system, so went to Absolute Linux. Work great, now it is screwing up after updating.. What I need is, can anyone tell me where I can get a good distro of Linux Mint 9, one that will work. This one starts to boot, goes to casper, then reboots, same thing over and over... Any ideas Thanks, Garry

Have you tried cleaning the DVD drive and the DVD? Micro-fibre cloths supplied for screen cleaning are excellent for cleaning DVDs.

You might also try checksumming the failing DVD; this requires the actual size of the DVD data which you can get from its torrent file or by starting to download it with wget. Divide the size by 512 and use it in the dd command's count= as shown below. Ensure the DVD is not mounted or its file system contents will be copied rather than the image. In the example command below, replace /dev/hda (the DVD drive) and 8538892 with values to suit your system and then md5sum the test.iso file.

Tried that to no avail..Had 2 friend dwld mint 8.5 . One has Absolute Linux the other windows xp. both downloaded and burned cd.. These are experienced people.. None of the cd's would boot. Also they downloaded from different mirrors. I downloaded PCLinux, which I do not like. Boots right up. ????? guess I'm just destined to never use Mint,huh. Thanks for trying. Looks to me like the mirrors or wires between here and there, or sun spots, or terrorists, or the government don't like me????Thanks again, Garry, but I hollar Uncle

why not use a usb or boot it off hdd? or from iso grub2