Can someone please tell me what I am doing wrong.

I downloaded MEPIS and burned it onto a disc. I checked that there were directories, including one called 'BOOT', but I am not sure how to get it working.

I understand that it can run from the disc with an option to install it later.

I set my bios to start from CD first and tried it, but after a while of the CD spinning, the GRUB boot loader took over and started Red Hat 9.

Regards

Snowy

sometimes the bios will not give the cd enough time. What I have found is to ONLY boot from the CD, edit your bios so that the harddrive CAN'T boot at all. Did you burn the iso yourself?

titanium_geek

Yes, I burned the ISO and without ever having done so before. Probably wrong method.

I cannot seem to find definitive instructions for doing so. Most people that explain it on the internet seem to assume that you already know what you're doing.

I used Nero Burning ROM and the downloaded files were extracted by Isobuster. I've used Nero plenty of times but never in this context. I didn't even know I had Isobuster until it offered itself for use.

All this was done in XP since I have not managed to get any of my stuff working in Linux yet.

If there's a better way I would love to know about it.

I am happy to start again from scratch rather tha try to analyse what went wrong.

Regards

Snowy

I tried your suggestion titanium_geek, thanks but no joy.

I wonder if I should make the CD bootable by putting a boot sequence on it from another CD???

Not sure if that is what you would do, but my CD certainly cannot find boot instructions even though there is a folder called BOOT on it.

Should I put the contents of the folder on the CD separately?

I guess that I have missed something here because if I had to do those things, I would have found reference to them in help files and FAQs.

Regards


Snowy

Extracting the files with ISObuster and then burning will not create a bootable CD.
Use the following method:
http://www.linuxiso.org/viewdoc.php/neroburning.html

Thanks. I will give that a try.

Regards

Snowy

another ISO help link:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...iewcat&catid=8

if the ISO is right (md5sum's match, burned right) it should boot no problem.

titanium_geek

Four hours later and I still cannot get the thing to burn, except to just put the ISO file on the disc. I gather that I need to be able to see separate files and folders there before it will work.

Is this why I want to get away from Windows?

I reckon that my version of Nero Burning Rom does not like the new CD writer I just installed.

Is there a better way?

The problem seems to be that you guys must all use Linux to do your burning. I have Red Hat 9 but I don't have any idea yet how to burn CDs. Do I need to buy a program for that?

Snowy

If you have RedHat installed, do you have k3b? I haven't used Nero in a long time but I do remember it had the option to "burn image" or "burn ISO" I forget the exact phrase used, but I do know it's there.

If you have k3b, burn it with that selecting "Tools>CD>Burn CD image

I don't seem to have K3B.

I am fairly well used to using Nero but not for ISO files.

I will look for K3B and install it. Never installed anything before in Linux, but perhaps it's time to try.

Snowy

Are you doing what's in this picture?

http://www.wizardskeep.org/mainhall/...nero/nero1.jpg

Yes, but originally no.

What happens now is that it carries out a burn but to a virtual drive.

I cannot set it to burn to the CD, the 'Choose Recorder' tag only gives me a choice of Image Recorder ... Virtual Device and not the CD recorder.

This a a newer problem than the one I first had.

It seems to me that I ought not to worry you good people with this. I should be trying to get to grips with Red Hat 9 and doing the burn from there. I'm sure that you are more capable (and happier) to advise me about that if I cannot do it.

Thanks

Snowy.

Here is the command line method to burn an ISO to CD.
cdrecord dev=x,y,z padsize=63s -pad -data -v /path_to/file.iso

To find the device i.e. x,y,z check the output of the command
cdrecord --scanbus

Thanks to all for your help.

Mepis now running.

K3B is more straightforward than using Nero once I learned how to type!

Regards

Snowy

k3b is actually a gui application.

if you followed michaelk's instructions- that wasn't k3b.

glad you got it working.

titanium_geek