In over my head, Help!

[baseball1019]

Hi guys,
The other day, I got a little too excited reading about Ubunutu 9.04 Jaunty Jackolope. I downloaded an Alpha to upgrade from 8.10 and obviously didn't read into this enough. I downloaded the Alpha on my Dell laptop after upgrading to the most recent Linux Kernel version. When I log-in, the screen flickers for a few seconds. Then some broken up graphics are displayed and it returns to the log-in screen. I'm trying to install 8.10 from a disc, but the disc won't do anything without being in the desktop environment. How can I restore my $400 dollar paper weight?

[lykwydchykyn]

Is this a laptop that came preinstalled with Ubuntu, or did you install it after the fact?

If the former, is the disc the one that came with it, or one you downloaded?

[jrusso2]

Are you booting off the CD? Or just running it?

You should be booting off it if not.

[baseball1019]

I made the cd myself from a download. I don't know how to boot from it without it loading by itself. I tried restarting several times.
It is an older Dell that came with XP on it. I replaced it with Ubuntu in November.

[jrusso2]

Well first off the cd has to be burned as an .iso image not as files dragged and dropped onto the cd.

Second make sure you bios is set with the boot device of cd/dvd first in the boot order.

[baseball1019]

Alright. Changed boot order in BIOS. Problem solved. Thanks guys!