michael mozenko wrote:
Hello, I am trying to install Debian. I am a first time user but Linux sounds great and I want to try it out. I have already partitioned my hard drive to accept the new OS, and I downloaded the “alpha” version of Debian and burned it to a DVD-RW, then I restarted my computer and set the BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive, but the computer still started Windows even though I could see it started reading the DVD drive, then it just loaded Windows as normal. Then I downloaded the “AMD” version of Debian and burned it to a DVD. When I restarted my computer, the DVD drive was obviously reading but then Windows loaded as normal.
The problem is not with Debian."alpha" version? Stick with standard, certainly no more than "testing" unless you are sure of what you are doing. You can move to newer later without a reinstall.
For some reason the computer is failing to start booting from the DVD so it shrugs, nothing valid there and boots the next device, hard drive.
This might be something wrong with the DVD, such as the way the ISO has been written. Creating a bootable DVD is not necessarily easy, rather depending on the software you used to create it.
If you used say XP to create the bootable DVD, how? As standard it can't do that. Either needs a package such as Roxio or there is an add-on to the Windows stuff which knows about ISO. To make that clear, simply copying an .iso file to a DVD as a normal file will not work.
Also, are you sure the drive/computer is capable of booting from DVD? Some will boot from CDROM but not from DVD. (maybe try a CDR or CDRW)
(RW disks can be more troublesome too) At least try booting the Windows CD to check all is well. If your PC has a floppy drive you could try http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/Get that onto a floppy using rawrite.exe and then boot it. Very simple, boots to a simple menu system which allows you to choose what to boot, such as the CD. Select CD and off you go. Should be obvious if that fails.
Once the DVD starts booting any failure will not bounce you to Windows boot, the machine will probably lock up or whatever. Unlikely, the basics are pretty reliable. This is why I say it is a DVD problem, never even tried.