On 5/12/08, Darcy Dean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > > This is an update on my attempt to run a Fedora 8 live cd on my Vista > laptop. I did the following: > > I downloaded Fedora 8 live cd i686 on to a 700 mb cd. The file size > was 697 mb. > > Set Bios to boot from CD/DVD. > > Inserted live cd and shut down laptop. Started laptop. > > MS loaded instead of Fedora 8 live. > > Checked the web and learned that Vista may interfere with the mbr > when Fedora boots. Is this what might be preventing Fedora from > loading? > > Any suggestions as to what I may have missed?
I've observed two different problems that Windows users seem to encounter when trying out a Linux ISO they've just downloaded and one problem that only "advanced" users seem to encounter: (in order from most likely to least likely) 1) When burning the CD, you may have used the normal Windows method of burning a CD. This would involve dragging and dropping (or copying and pasting) the .iso file into the CD/DVD drive, then click 'Burn.' This results in a CD that has a single file on it, which is not the goal. If this is the case, you need to follow the steps here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BurningIsoHowto 2) A more advanced user may have something like WinRAR installed that allows you to extract the contents of an .iso file. In this case, I've seen people extract all of the files from the .iso, then burn those to disk. This creates a disc that is not bootable. In this case, throw the disc out and follow the steps in the link in 1) above. 3) The least likely (but not so unlikely that I haven't seen it before) is that somehow you burned the .iso properly, but unchecked the "make bootable" flag somewhere in your CD burning utility. I only list this here because secondary to a failed burn, it is the most difficult thing to troubleshoot. Good luck, and I hope you find Fedora Core 8 to your liking. Personally, I find Knoppix to be a better LiveCD style distro, since it was designed from the ground up to be run from a CD. If you do decide to try it further, you may be surprised to find some "basic" necessities missing: WMV, MP3, and DVD support (is this still an issue with FC, anybody?) for example. There are legal and/or licensing issues surrounding these formats and other things, and are only supported by third parties (but it is easy to set up if you want to.) -Mark C. _______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list [email protected] http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
