Did you burn the installation CD? If so, did you burn it correctly?

1. A very common mistake is to download a Linux iso images and then just burn it to CD as a file instead of burning the iso as a disk image. Insert the Linux CD into your drive while you're booted into Windows; if you just see one large .iso file on the CD, that's what's happened.

Info on burning disk images cn be found here.


2. Either the downloaded iso or the CD burn could be corrupt. Use MD5Sums to verify the download, and make sure to use your burning software to verify the disk after burning.


3. If you got the CD out of book/magazine/etc., it could be a bad disk. This is pretty common.

You could use

http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

for creating an image in a floppy and then try installing ..

./thanks
ilaiy

I baught a new Pentium 4 machine and to my shock you cant boot of the CD drive. Its a really old model and needs special dos drivers. To combat this I made a linux kickstart floppy with the modules on it.