Live CD won't boot

[Harry Kuhman]

Actually, I think it's my computer. 1. My friend in NC downloaded Knoppix from the same mirror and it worked on his Windows ME machine and 2. Ubuntu live didnt work either when I rebooted

It could be your computer. But it still could be the download. I've seen (and documented in other threads) a problem where the combination of software used on your end and the software on the mirror together fail to do the transfer as a binary transfer the way it should be done and instead do a Linux new line to MS CR/LF translation, in the manner that should be done for a text file transfer but not a binary transfer. The md5 will catch that and any other corruption that might happen to the iso during transfer. You can speculate all day about what the problem might be, or you can do a simple md5 checksun calculation and know for certain if you have a good download or not. Ubuntu might have corrupted in the same way, or your system might indeed have a booting issue. Personally, I like to know what he problem is and then resolve it, rather than trying to fix something that might not really be the problem.

I was exaggerating to make a point that there are way too many technical procedures and directions that it's telling me to take and I don't really understand what to do exactly

That doesn't seemed to have served you well. If you had asked specific questions about things in the faq that were not clear people would have responded to help you. If the faq was really confusing we likely would have even been able to improve it based on your input (or you could have decided to make the improvements to it yourself). But when you just say that you don't understand a word of a faq when several of us have worked to see that it contains good information, it's difficult to give you more information.

[pureone]

Well, I think we have the souce of the problem right here. See the documentation link at the top of this page and then read the downloading faq. If you need more details after that, search knoppix.net by the search feature at the top of the page for md5 and you'll get plenty of discussion of it, or even search the web with Google and you'll learn a lot.

I absolutely didnt understand one word of that FAQ

BOOT CD FROM CDROM and then fail or does it just simply boot to windows?

I did


EDIT: I already deleted the iso file. You know what, screw this. Nothing EVER works when I try to do it. If the files dont work, then why are they on the web to download then? I'm just gonna get rid of the CD. This is too much of a hassle

i said

when turning on the computer does it say

BOOT CD FROM CDROM ::

and then fail
or does it just simply boot to windows?
with out saying anything else.

your response "i did" doesnt make and sense for the question i asked.

can you say what is in the contents of the burned cd?

if burned correctly there should be a index.html file a autoexec.bat file and some folders and others.
if you find that in the cd then it means you burned the cd correctly.
if you did burn the cd correctly then it is a bios issue more then likly.
set your bios to boot from cd first. if that does not work then try set it to only boot from cd rom.

[Harry Kuhman]

..if you find that in the cd then it means you burned the cd correctly.
if you did burn the cd correctly then it is a bios issue more then likly....

If he finds that it does mean that he likely used the right burning command, but since he started the entire thread by saying he burnt it as an image, then he likely did use the correct burning command. But he could still have the file you mention (and all the others) but have corrupt files. I would not call that burning it correctly if he used a way to download that is known to frequently corrupt the files and not check if the file is good. It's the md5 check that will tell him that. Messing with the BIOS or SBM or any other way around it is a fools game until he does the simple test.

And yes, his response to your question that he even quoted makes one wonder and lowers expectations somewhat.