Can't boot Fedora (was: Re: (no subject))

[John Thompson]

tabe wrote:

> i have downloaded the four iso cd's but the first  one is not bootable. 
> how can i install fedora?

The first CD *IS* bootable. If you're unable to boot from the disk you 
burned, it could mean a number of things:

1) Your system is not configured or is unable to boot from a CD device.

Check the system BIOS and enable the CD device for booting.  If your 
BIOS lacks such an option, you'll have to make a boot floppy (Fedora 
core 1 only) or cobble up another means of booting the install image. 
Check the list archive for possibilities.

2) You burned the image wrong.

A common mistake is to burn the .iso image onto the CD as a single file. 
  If you look at the contents of the CD (using "dir" or "ls" or Windows 
Explorer, or whatever) and see only a single "whatever.iso" file on the 
disk, you did it wrong.  There should be a whole bunch of files and 
directories.  Start over and burn a new CD, this time specifying that 
you are burning an iso image file, not a regular file.  How exactly you 
do this will depend on what program you are using to burn the CD -- more 
information is needed.

3) The CD data is corrupt.

It happens sometimes.  That's why you compare the MD5SUM of the CD to 
that listed on the download site.  If they match, all is good.  If they 
don't, you need to re-download the .iso to get a good copy.

 > where can i find any documentation regarding fedora?

http://fedora.redhat.com/ is a good place to start.  Also 
http://www.fedorafaq.org/ and http://fedoranews.org/


-- 

-John (john at os2.dhs.org)