I am completely new to all things linux. I recently tried to install Mandrake 9.2 onto a computer. A couple of times through the installation it gave me an error that it could not read the file from the cd. I did notice it had scratches but I said to ignore it and keep installing. Well the final outcome was obviously bad because it forced me to use Grub instead of Lilo and it would not load any GUI. I decided to uninstall it and re-install it with a newly burnt copy. However I didn't know how to uninstall being new to linux and not knowing any of the commands. So I used a windows 98 boot disk and ran fdisk and format even erasing out my mbr. But now my cdrom won't work. It says it is installed in the bios and flashes some lights when I first turn the computer on but after that it won't check if there is a bootable cd in the drive. I do have the bios set to boot to ATAPI CDROM but it won't even check. Now I can't install linux or windows. I tried using boot disks for both OS's but like I said: my cdrom just won't respond. Could Grub have done this? Is there a setting I'm missing? I've tried everything. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Nathan

What brand cdrom is this?

Just a generic 50x cdrom that I found sitting around. It worked fine before all of this though and it is still being recognized in the bios as a cdrom. It's like something is disabling it.

Check to see if it was made by LG, mandrake had (i say had cause they fixed it) a bug whereby it would flush the bios from the CD-Rom drive.

Best to just eliminate the possibility your CD-Rom is fried (this isnt really a problem with mandrake but more the manufacturor of the cd-roms)