driving me crazy!

[atekigrl 0]

I'm going crazy trying to install Fedora C5 on my Inspiron 2650 laptop. Since I'm a LINUX NEWBIE I downloaded the iso files and burned them into 5 cd's as instructed (3:38am). After several(SSS) attempts, I was able to see the Fedora GUI for the first time in my 14.1'screen, but soon after, I noticed I downloaded the 64bit instead (5:41am)! darn!! -- I went back and I just got the correct 32bit for my system. BUT I'm not able to boot from cd anymore. That's not the whole issue here though. Since this is a dell machine, they placed a system bios psw which I can't crack. I called dell (35 mns waiting), and I was not able to speak chinese nor mexican (I don't mean to offend anyone pls, I just didn't understand a word coming out of their mouth); anyway, I hung-up 50mins later without bios psw. (I also tried F12 option here & nothin').

----now, all I'm doing is writing for help and watching my laptop with the F8 menu waiting for me to decide what else I could do.

I read the fedora docs on redhat & wiki plus other sites. They all seem very easy to follow instructions, but it's taking me a lot of gray hairs & flat a** to install this. Please help me anyone? Is there a boot disc, floppy, usb, something I can trigger my system to read/boot from cd again? (don't tell me the hammer, cuz I already did!)--- Btwn, I also downloaded Mepis - it works like a charm! At least I can see a light there - pls help this poor young lady. Thansk.

[Stumbles 0]

It sounds like your second download may have been corrupt or your second burn attempt was corrupt. You might want to verify the md5sum on the downloaded files and before and after you burn the 1st cd.

 

As for resetting the bios password. There are a number of methods to do that and can be some what machine dependent. A quick google gives http://www.dewassoc.com/support/bios/bios_password.htm and http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000235.htm , there are of course many more.

[danleff 0]

You should not need to get into the bios to change the boot order. I don't have my work Dell with me, but there us a key to press during boot to change the boot media. It may be F12, F2, or just pressing the enter key, as the system boots. Dells boot quickly and it is difficult to see the option on the screen to change the boot priority. consult your users manual for the proper key.

 

However, this does not seem to be your problem. If the Mepis CD boots, then you most likely have an issue with the burned installation CD.

 

Did you burn the iso images as a data file, or burn them as images?

 

See my article here.

 

What burning software did you use with the iso images?

 

Also, Fedora uses sha1sum to verify the images. But first, let's see how you burned the images first.

[atekigrl 0]

First of all, thank you for your responses. I downloaded the iso images into 5 different folders. Then, I burned the images with Nero, with the Disc Image option. I burned all iso images the same way as well as Knoppix & Mepis which those two are working very well. If fact, I'm formatting my Dell Insp 2650 with Mepis and installing it right from LiveCD. However, none of the images for Fedora are working on none of the three computers I have here. I conclude the issue are the actual image files downloaded from that ftp site. Nonetheless, the only thing it stills concerns me is that I downloaded the Knoppix & Mepis from the same ftp site and they worked. I also run the Sha1sum to each of the images as soon as downloaded them, and the key was exactly the same. My next step will be to check each image again with the sha1sum that comes with the Mepis OS. Right now I can't think of another solution to install Fedora core. :-/

[danleff 0]

Can you give us the site address that you are using, as well as the exact name of the images that you are downloading?

 

You can just give us the name of the first iso image, out of the set of five.

 

Make sure that you are burng the images at no more than 8X speed.

 

Also, what exact media are you using for the burns? What speed are they rated for?

[atekigrl 0]

I used this site ftp://ftp.muug.mb.ca/pub/fedora/linux/core/5/x86_64/iso/

then this one ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/fedora because I selected the 64bit instead of 32bit --

I used Nero to burn the iso's at 8x. This is the disc 1 file yarrow-SRPMS-disc1.iso ---- when I check the sha1sum, it showed it was ok. Using cd-r berkley & jensen (bj's brand).

 

[atekigrl 0]

why don't you provide me with a good ftp or location where I can download at least the first disc and then I burn it and test it? I've been playing with this thing for over a week already. Thanks.

[danleff 0]

You need to download the i386 images from ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distributions/fedora/5/i386/iso/

 

Note the location of the images. Do not use the sprms, if that is what you really did.

 

The other possible issue is the quality and rating of the CD disks. Try burning the first disk, test it, then report back.

 

[atekigrl 0]

Perfect iso downloads and installation!! THanks