PROBLEM INSTALLING RED HAT LINUX 8 FROM WINDOWS ME

First Try:
I have partioned the HD; partition 1 is WINDOWS; partition 2 is UNASSIGNED
The Linux installation CD-ROM boots up with Auto Run & I get the first screen
asking for the source - either CD-ROM or HD.
Clicking CD-ROM doesn't work because the CD-ROM drive is dead!
This indicates (to me) that there is no driver for the CD-ROM drive.
To get round this:-
Second Try:
Made an installation Floppy by putting 'boot.img' on a blank diskette using rawrite.exe
Rebooted.
BIOS does not halt with "no system disk" error, but neither does it load boot.img.
It just carries on and loads Windows
I feel this cannot be a partitioning problem because only working memory is being used
I have 128MB of RAM.
The CD Drive is Samsung DVD ROM SD608 IDE controlled
Processor= AMD K7 3D NOW technology
I would be grateful for advice. AlexO

can you boot directly from the cd?
if not... go to www.bootdisk.com, download a dos5.5 or so bootdisk (they should have mscdex cdrom drivers), boot from that floppy, and then manualy start the install process from there

Please check your bios settings. If you can not boot using either a cdrom or a floppy, the hard drive is probably first in the booting order.

Some computers have a key that you can press during the post phase that lets you select a different boot device. This is a one time selection that can save you the trouble of making a bios change for just one, time. On some computers itś the ESC key, on others its F3. Some computers don´t have an this however.