Hi there,

I'm a bit of a newbie, and have bought a new computer (without any OS installed on the hard drive) in the hope of installing Ubuntu or some other Linux distribution -- I've previously installed Puppy Linux on an old PC without any problems (which I'm using now). However, whenever I try to boot from the Ubuntu live CD (or even if it just boots from the empty hard drive), I get this message, "BOOTMGR is missing", and it then tells me to press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart. The same message also appears if I try to boot from other CDs (including the Puppy Linux CD I'd used successfully on the other computer).

I'd really appreciate it if someone out there could explain to me what the issue is and a possible solution to it.

Many thanks!

Have you set the BIOS to boot from CD first?

Have you ensured that the Boot list in the BIOS is set up to boot from the CD/DVD before the hard disk? At first glance it looks like your system is consistently trying to boot from your (empty) hard drive.

Oh! and Welcome to LinuxQuestions!

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Look in the documentation of your Motherboard to see what key combination you need to press during the booting process to allow you boot from the optical device installed in your computer. Your motherboard probably support booting from an USB key also, so you can make a bootable USB drive.

Good luck to you.

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Actually, the harddisk is not complete empty. The message "BOOTMGR is missing" comes from the first stage of the Windows bootloader when it can't find its second stage.
If this is a newly built computer i would check some things first:
1. Can you see the CD/DVD drive in the BIOS? If not check the cables.
2. Do you have set the BIOS to first boot from CD/DVD?
3. Which method have you used to burn the CD/DVD? Have you used the lowest possible speed?

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That message indicates that Windows was installed on that hard drive at some point, but now is missing, probably because it was deleted, or the hard drive is now in a different configuration. The fact you're seeing that at all means that the system is not booting from the DVD drive, or the DVD itself is not bootable.

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Thanks for your help, everyone. The problem was that the boot menu was confusing: it listed "hard drive", "CD ROM", "USB" etc., so I kept choosing "CD ROM", but at the bottom of the menu was another option with the name of my CD drive's manufacturer and I needed to use that instead, so I'm now using Ubuntu with ease. I don't know why the "CD ROM" option was there if it doesn't relate to the CD drive (maybe one of you does?).

I do still have one problem, however: I don't know whether it may be best to make a new thread, but I'll mention it here just in case anyone can help. Wireless internet isn't working, I presume because it doesn't have the drivers for my PCI-E wireless adapter -- which is an Edimax N300. I tried using ndiswrapper, but didn't get anywhere. I can use the wired internet, however, but that involves taking my computer downstairs so is a big pain in the arse. If there's anyone who can help me with this, I'll be eternally grateful, as I really need to use the internet wirelessly and don't want to have to install Windows, as I'm sure you can understand.

Once again, thanks for your help so far.

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Thanks for telling us what fixed it.

Have not thought about that, had the same thing with my Gigabyte GA-MA770-UD3, just have forgotten those things.

For your wireless issue, it would be best to open a new thread, include the output of in your opening post.

1 members found this post helpful.

Ah, that makes sense, as my motherboard is a GA-990XA-UD3.

I've made a new thread about the wireless issue here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi....php?p=4734078