cant install from dvd

[Aleksandar Milivojevic]

David Klose wrote:
> Yes, i have one cdrw drive and this dvdrw drive.
> The cd drive is set as primary slave, while the dvd is
> set as secondary master.

Than the problem is with your BIOS (basically, this means you will not 
be able to boot anything from your DVD), and solution is dependent on 
the type of BIOS you have in your PC.

Some things to try.  Note that these are only hints, every BIOS is 
different.  Your BIOS might support some of this features/tricks, or it 
might not support any of them.  In later case, the only way to go would 
be to rewire your PC (swap CD/RW drive and DVD/RW drive, or temporarely 
remove CD/RW drive).  Well, there's one more trick in this case that 
should work, at the very end of this email.

Some BIOSes will scan all CD-ROM/DVD devices and boot from first that 
contains bootable CD (if any).  Obviously, your BIOS is not doing this.

On some BIOSes, it is possible to specify which CD-ROM/DVD to use for 
booting (go to boot options, select line that says 'CD-ROM' or something 
similar, press enter, you get the list of CD-ROM/DVD devices, select 
your DVD).

On some BIOSes, if you press 'ESC' key during memory test (to abort 
memory tests), you will be prompted with list of all potentially 
bootable devices (you should see at least floppy, all disk drives, and 
all CD-ROM/DVD drives on this list), and you will be able to choose from 
wich to boot (simply select your DVD from the list).  You might need to 
disable "fast boot", "skip POST" or any similar option in BIOS to make 
it do memory test that will last long enough for you to have time to 
press ESC (sometimes with those options enabled, BIOS doesn't perform 
memory test, or it is so fast that you don't have time to press ESC).

If none of the above tricks work with your BIOS (meaning it is able to 
boot only from first CD/DVD drive it finds), I'm affraid rewiring is 
(almost) the only option.  Almost, because there's one more trick you 
can try.  If you don't want to rewire, you might try downloading Rescue 
CD (80MB or so ISO image) and burning it to CD.  Place it in your CD-ROM 
drive.  Place install DVD into DVD drive.  Boot from Rescue CD.  On 
first boot prompt (as soon as CD is booted and you get Fedora splash 
screen) type "linux askmethod".  Boot loader will load Linux kernel and 
start Anaconda installer (just the same as if you booted from install 
DVD).  At one point during install it will ask you from where do you 
want to install (the "askmethod" option).  Choose your DVD drive.

-- 
Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic at pbl.ca>    Pollard Banknote Limited
Systems Administrator                           1499 Buffalo Place
Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276                     Winnipeg, MB  R3T 1L7