Greetings. I'm trying to install slack on a friend's computer. The CD I'm using should boot on its own when, in the BIOS, the CD-ROM drive is selected as the first thing to boot from. However, when I try to boot from the CD-ROM on my friend's computer, it complains about having an invalid boot floppy.

Is it perhaps that there's something up with his BIOS that it won't boot the Slack install CD (version 8.1) without a boot floppy or is it some other evil? As far as I can make out, he's running a Dell type computer, no idea what manner of motherboard he has, and he's running BIOS version AO3.

Any help would be most appreciated.

TheMad

When the computer starts up, is there an option titled "Boot Options" or something? Like F12 = Boot Setup? If so, it should give off some options to boot off of, like the CD Rom. Worth a shot is it not?

To me it sounds like the BIOS doesn't support the bootable CD rom. You might want to look at smart boot manager or make the 6 floppy disks to boot and install.

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net

How would I go about looking at the smart boot manager?

Also, I did look in the BIOS options and I did set the CD-ROM drive to the highest slot in the boot priority list thing (I even set it to be the only thing) and it still tries booting off the floppy.

To look at smart boot manager, try clicking the link I provided. The program can be installed to a floppy disk. When the disk is booted it can detect the CDROM drive and allow it to boot to Slack the CD. They have a Linux and a Windows version available.