New to both linux and installing OS in general. Purchased boxed set - xandros home edition 4. Installing on Dell C640. I prematurely wiped the drive. Laptop will not allow boot from CD. Boxed set only has CD's and the file labeled "boot" on the Installation CD is too large to copy to floppy. Using another computer to copy files, etc. I see that I can create a boot floppy by downloading from various sites. How do I know I am using the right boot? Also, read somewhere that I need to use the boot floppy while the Installation CD is in the drive but this is not possible because my laptop has swappable CD / floppy drives. I have an external hard drive that I copied the Installation CD to but wouldn't know what to do with it from here. E-mailed Linux customer service and haven't heard back. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Check you BIOS to see if you change your boot order. I had to change the boot order of my laptop so that I could boot the install disk as well.

You could consider re-intalling the original OS. Was it windows? Anyway after installing it run a disk management software like System Commander. Partition your hard drive. Load you new OS on the partition, The use the disk management software and delete the old OS partition and resize the new OS to the complete size of your HDD.
I have done this with System Commander.
-Scadatech-

The Xandros CD has an MS Windows autorun function. If you pop this CD into a Windows machine I bet it will split /boot/boot2880.img into three diskettes so you can floppy boot the install, with the install CD in the drive, and Xandros will find the CD after it floppy boots.

This is a good suggestion, but if I read his post correctly he has to swap his floppy and CD drives out. Hence he can't have both in at the same time. Reinstalling the original OS is a good idea as well if that is if you can. If you can't though its nothing to worry about it, you've not run out of options yet.

THANK YOU all for replying. I decided to unplug the box and remove the battery and plug back in just for kicks before doing anything further. It WORKED! Even booted from CD. Can you say "bonehead"? Anyway, good info and thanks again. Jason

I am glad you got it resolved. Good luck with Linux.

hi
is there any ways to boot from an external CD-drive? Currently my laptop CD drive is not working so is there any ways to boot from another drive?

If your BIOS gives you the option you can boot from a USB drive.