I’m trying to install the linux distribution ‘Gentoo’ on my computer. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to boot from CD. I have set my bios to boot from CD, then Floppy, then HD. When I turn the computer on, after it does the memory check, it has a little prompt saying “boot from cd…” and it waits for half a second, then it continues to boot into Windows.
I know it’s possible to boot from CD, and I remember having this same problem when I installed WinXP. I just forgot what magic key I pressed at the “boot from cd…” prompt.
Oh, and I have a Shuttle SN41G2 and I’m pretty sure my bios is version FN41S00X.
Just tell me the magic key!
(yes, I’ve tried key mashing, but I can only take Windows fussing that it didn’t boot up properly so many times before I go berserk.)
Bah. What’s more fun that re-allocation your partitions for the 3th time at 3am 'cause you forgot /boot has to be within the first X cylinders?
Dunno about the CD. You sure you burned it from a bootable iso? No idea about keys, but having a copy of Tom’s root boot disk around is always handy. You can boot with that, then mount the CD filesystem by… doing a bunch of stuff I’ve forgotten years ago. But it’d work.
Normally you do not have to press any special key combination to boot from CD. Windows XP CDs have a special “Press any key to boot from CD” prompt, but they are the exception. It is more likely that there is a problem with this particular CD. Can you access it ok from within an operating system? Older CD-ROM drives can have trouble reading CD-Rs. If you also can’t boot from pressed (non-burned) CDs then the drive may be bad.
I’m sure it’s a bootable ISO. Also, now that I think about it, I think I also had this problem when installing Mandrake (a system wipe ago). I guess it’s just an oddity of my system. The solution then was to mash buttons, but I was hoping there was a standard key combination.
