Quote Originally Posted by segway
You have to remember that there are two machines we are talking about, my desktop and my laptop.
Then let's focus on the desktop.
Quote Originally Posted by segway
The desktop has boot problems, and they do not involve the integrity of the d/l, burn, or reading of the cd.
You may be right, but how do you know that? That is, how do you know that your CD-ROM drive does not have an issue with that CD media? For example, it is possible that the CD media has a defect in it that the CD-ROM drive in the machine cannot compensate for, whereas CD-ROM drives in other machines can. You can find other posts in these forums where people have gotten CDs to boot by changing CD disk vendors, swapping CD-ROM drives, or simply burning the same CD at a different speed. There's no guarantee that those tricks will work for you, but may be worth giving a try.
Quote Originally Posted by segway
The desktop WILL boot and run some other live cd's.
Knoppix will not boot from either of my 2 cd-roms, one of which is a cd-rw. (separate tests...each set up as secondary master.)
That confirms that the CD-ROM will work with other media, but says nothing about the media on which Knoppix is burned.
Quote Originally Posted by segway
The real question is, what is issuing this message, and what does it mean?
The bootloader, ISOLINUX, is issuing the message and it means that ISOLINUX is not loading.

One thing that might work:
- boot some other OS, e.g Windows or SLAX
- put this CD into the other CD-ROM drive
- mount the CD

Can you read the CD? Can you create an ISO from the CD? What happens when you do the same using the other CD-ROM drive?

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org/