Win 98 boot cd works, Puppy Linux live doesn't --Why?

[Matt L]

I'm trying get an old clunker of a computer I've been trying to resurrect ( make that two..) to work using Linux. I've tried a few distro's and think I like Puppy. In the first computer the Puppy Live disk would not boot, tried the disk in an old laptop and it booted fine. I then tried to boot the first computer with a Win98 boot CD and it worked fine. Why will the win 98 disk work and the Linux disk not work? Any ideas?

The other computer is an odd ball, and old Smart and Easy unit, all USB no PS2, no serial ports. In this one the Puppy Live disk will boot, but after I choose an option is simply reboots the system in an endless loop. Weird. Again, any ideas?

 

[imported_bparks]

Just a question. Is the WIN98 cd a retail disk? Is the Puppy distribution on a burned cd?

With that having been said it might be the cd-rom drive in the old computer is unable to read the burned cd. You might just need to put a newer cd-rom drive in it and they are fairly cheap.

 

[Matt L]

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The disk that boots is a CD version of the Win 98 boot disk, the one we all made from within Win 98. I used Nero to burn this, so it will defiantly boot with burned disks.

I had the same idea as you and tried two or three cd units all with no luck. this is frustrating. I have half a dozed mother boards lying around but I really don't want to pull everthing apart and us one of them, plus they are all slower.

 

[MadRat]

You probably just did not click on "make bootable" when you burnt it.

 

[Matt L]

No, actually I've tried both way, just burning the image file to CD and burning it as a bootable disk in Nero. nothing seems to work.

 

[MadRat]

Apparently your BIOS isn't setup for the particular boot sector technique used by Nero, but rather supports an older version that MS used on your 98 disk.