CD Boot Problems

[Rick Stevens]

On Fri, 2006-02-03 at 21:53 -0700, brad.mugleston at comcast.net wrote:
> I've got FC4 running on my notebook - against my best wishes I
> need to install XP on it for my daughter - she has a class that
> requires Windows to run a program from the class.  I don't have a
> windows machine in the house (I do have a bunch of Linux machines
> though).
> 
> Well, I happen to have XP, came with a computer.  The notebook
> will no longer boot off a CD - could it be GRUB?  The BIOS is
> setup to boot from the CD but no go.  Or maybe my XP disk is bad
> (after all it is windows).

No, the ability to boot from CD is in the BIOS.  If the CD media itself
is bad, that may prevent a boot.  The CD drive itself may also be bad
(or the lens dirty).  Try to boot from CD again and see if the machine
even accesses the CD.  If it does, try a different piece of media (even
the first Fedora CD or the rescue CD) and see if that boots.  If that
also fails, try getting a CD drive cleaner disk and use it.  See if
that helps.

Also keep in mind that if it's an older CD drive and you're trying to
read a blue-green CDR on it, it may not work because the laser used on
older CD drives was 690nM and not the more current 630nM or 650nM
wavelength and can't read the blue-green media (yes, I know that's a bit
obscure, but...)

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- Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens at vitalstream.com -
- VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
-                                                                    -
-          Consciousness: that annoying time between naps.           -
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