Help booting live disk

[Linux for blind general discussion]

Shortly after you power on the laptop, usually about 2 to 3 seconds, press the 
F12 key. It never hurts to press it once every second after that, letting 
another 3 to 4 seconds go by. Now press the down arrow key once, followed by the 
enter key. Count off another 3 seconds for safety and press the enter key again, 
or else perform the steps your distro requires in order to start it talking. If 
your computer doesn't boot to the USB stick after this, repeat the steps above, 
except instead of pressing the down arrow key once, press it twice. Keep 
repeating those steps, adding in additional presses of the down arrow key each 
time until it does boot correctly.
~Kyle