Live CD won't boot - SBM not helping either
 

Okay, I have an older computer, I think it might have had Win98 in an earlier life (the OS was erased when I got it), 10GB hard drive, not sure how much RAM.

I installed Ubuntu on it awhile back, just burned the iso to a CD, popped the CD in, it installed, no problem. It ran kind of slow though, so I removed some apps I didn't need, then I decided I should just erase Ubuntu and install Xubuntu instead.

I decided to use fdisk to delete the partitions. Now I messed everything up.

I deleted the primary partition, but when I tried to delete the Extended Partition, it says "Cannot delete Extended DOS Partition while logical drives exist." When I try to delete the logical drives, it says "No logical drives defined".

Hoping that deleting one partition would be good enough, I tried booting with the Xubuntu CD. It got to the startup screen okay, but when it tried to load up Xubuntu, I got a bunch of error messages. Now when I try to boot from the Xubuntu or the Ubuntu live CDs, it tries to load, but fails and spits the CD back out.

Since the CD wouldn't boot, I tried SmartBootManager, but all it gives me is "SBMK Bad!"

Bottom Line: I'm stuck with this computer with no OS that refuses to boot from CD-ROM, even though it did before. It will boot from floppy, though. How do I get it to run the Xubuntu LiveCD and install Xubuntu?

If you're worried it has something to do with the hard drive, you can try wiping the drive with something like DBAN on floppy.

What error messages do you get from the Xubuntu CD? If the CD drive is bad, you'll have to install a new one.

There are distros that can boot with a floppy then do a net install, like Debian. Not sure if Ubuntu has the option or not...

Okay, I ran DBAN and then the LiveCD and it worked. Now I have Xubuntu installed on my computer. :)