Old Compaq desktop won't boot from CD-ROM

[djcescato]

I wanted to play w/ Linux at home so I bought the O'Reilly "Ubuntu: Up and Running" book. I'm using the included 10.04 CD. I'm not finding much info on installing from a CD there (well, not finding it easily at least).

I got an old Compaq desktop (model 5WV280, if that matters) from a friend. I checked the BIOS listing; it lists the CD as the first boot drive, diskette second, hard disk third. I don't have the password for his account, but I didn't think that would matter.

Anyway, I inserted the CD, did a shutdown and power up. The CD drive spins and the light comes on. Next, the diskette tries to spin and the light comes on. Finally the hard disk access light comes on and the silly thing boots to Windows XP Pro from the hard drive.

Did I miss something? I put the CD in my (heaven help me) Vista machine, and was able to read the CD with no problems.

I'm a code cowboy, not a wire-head, so I'm clueless.

[lisati]

I found that my old desktop (not a Compaq) was happy to boot from the Win98SE CD but not the Linux CDs I tried. The workaround I eventually used was to prepare a floppy with Smart Boot Manager on it. More info can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/

[djcescato]

Thanks Lisati. I'll give that a try.

[djcescato]

Further update - Of course it won't boot from the CD-ROM drive! The disk included w/ the O'Reilly book is in DVD format! Once I downloaded the .iso and burned it to a straight-up CD all went well.

Sorry for the false alarm. IMHO, the publisher made a poor choice of format.

Thanks again for trying to help, Lisati. You're one of the good guys.

[baitchunker]

Same problem. I can get into the BIOS by using the F10 key, but nothing will change. How did you get the boot order changed?