This is on three different machines, two different types of blank CD's in two different states from three different mirrors. The MD5sums are all right, but the burn produces a bad (apparently) copy that won't boot. After the GRUB screen, it goes into some kind of loop that displays thousands of the same message which is something like something/init5/messed-up. I tried various boot options but nothing seems like it helps. I just realized I didn't try just booting to runlevel 3, but the CD's I burned are now land fill so I can't go back and try it.

If anyone knows what is going on, please chime in!

You could get a good working copy from linuxtracker.org . Some of us at MEPISlovers are seeding so you can use your torrent app to get a good one.
You are burning as an iso? Probably right? You should try and burn at the lowest speed that you can.
Another option is to get a copy of beta 7 or rc1. Either one would upgrade to rc2 in a few minutes after the install is done. I'm on rc2 but it started as beta 1 and has been upgraded gradual like with the apt-notify feature until it is an rc2. Try linuxtracker.org for an earlier beta or rc1.

Thanks for the reply. K3b won't let me slow down the speed on this machine. Nero on the XP machine was at 2X and the third machine was at normal speed. The log for the third burn (also Nero) showed an error in the data on the media which is what I assume happened on the first two. -sigh- Never had that happen before. I'll try again when final comes out before I reformat from Xubunbtu to Mepis 6.5. Yes, I am burning .iso's.

This is a me-too post, I know, but it would be a pity if this issue was let slip with unhelpful stock answers.

Both the OP and I checked the md5sum and found it good. If so, then the burn is very likely good too. Many, many folk have surely downloaded SimplyMEPIS-CD_6.5.rc2_32.iso and found it worked fine or the clamour here would be horrendous. So what is the problem that we two (and, I guess, some others) have with this distro?

Maybe bluesman233 has a dodgy motherboard. I have. It's a fresh new Foxconn P9657AA, one with a jMicron IDE chip which brings LOADS of CD trouble with it as it fails to boot most distros I have put into it**. Once the CD initial menu has been selected from the distros start and the kernel can't see the CD anymore and each one collapses in its own little way. I know that a 'P965 with jMicron' option (which is why I downloaded it) is on the MEPIS boot menu but it fails too... This error - can't find /etc/init - may be the same problem. I am about to attempt to start it from drive C: or a flash-pen to see if this is what we are suffering from.

Watch this space.

If any folk have got MEPIS running first time (or soon thereafter) on a Foxconn or other P965-jMicron board, please let me/us know how it happened!

**Zenwalk is fine, Suse, Puppy, Kanotix, Xubuntu and DSL failed.

Cheers,

I burned 6.1 with a laptop and it did not work, then I burned it on my box and got a good burn, but not bef0ore chnging the burner from dao to tao.

DAO should be the more stable way. I'll try TAO. Thanks.

Do the 'bad' cds work on another computer?
It's rare but sometimes you can get two,three or more bad blanks in a row. It has happened to me before. What brand of cd blanks are you using?
You shouldn't have to play with the tao dao settings if you are using k3b. Auto will work fine. Just try and burn as slow as you can. My burner won't burn any slower than 8X when I burn cds. I can go as slow as I want with a dvd but I usually burn dvds at 4X. I've probably burnt a hundred isos and only a few were no good. Bad blanks I imagine.
Un-checking and disabling the option to boot from the hard drive, in your bios, will sometimes make a cd install go smoother. just remember to re-enable the option to boot from the hard drive right after you install.

The CD boots to the GRUB menu but fails when going to run level 5. This same batch of CD's burn fine on other things and I am trying many machines for the boot and burn.