confused!

[kittykat1982]

Hi there,

I have just bought an IBM Thinkpad and an external CD Drive, the laptop has no OS installed so I bought 'Mandriva 2008'. The problem is I can't boot the OS from the external drive, I have set the BIOS to check the CD Drive first, I have copied the files onto a flash drive and I have now given up hope.

Can anyone give me some advice on what to try next.

I bought the cd drive separate so I guess the laptop doesn't recognise it?

Thanks KittyKat

[steven woodman]

I would try to boot the cd on another computer to see if its good, or bootable. Then go from there.

[Aia]

>I have set the BIOS to check the CD Drive first
Assuming that it means you have set the BIOS to boot from CD correctly.
Either the CD drive is not working correctly or the disc doesn't have/can't read from a booting process.

Have you tried to download another distro liveCD for testing?
Distrowatch

[DimaYasny]

test with another CD
also, older laptops cannot boot from an external USB drives. if that's the case, you will need to use PXE boot, ifi available, and set up a server to install from

[kittykat1982]

thanks for your help I think it needs booting from a server and as i'm not techy enough to cope with that I'm going to sell the laptop and get a slightly newer one

again thanks for all your help

kittykat

[jbennet]

also, older laptops cannot boot from an external USB drives.

my r30 from early 2000/2001 can

what model of thinkpad?

You DO NOT chose CD-Drive as a boot option. That means an internal cd-drive. You have an external one. For that, choose the option for biooting from a USB device.

[kittykat1982]

it's a T21 i didn't think to try it from the usb device option.

i'll try that before i think about listing it on ebay!!!!

Thanks for telling me that!!!
Kittykat