Installing Linux on IBM TP 600X

[Judeee]

Hello guys i am trying to install Mandrake 9.1 on my thinkpad 600x. The problem is, even though the laptop has been set to boot from cd, it doesn't do that and also when I'm in windows the cd doesn't even load. I know the cd works because i have used it a couple of times on my desktop. Can anybody help?
The specs of the laptop are
PIII 500, 196 Ram and 12gb HDD.

Thanks in advance

[yowwww]

have you set it to boot from cd in the bios?

if there is no option to do that and it doesn't work, you may need a boot floppy that has drivers for the cdrom, let's hope your floppy and cdrom are at least hot swappable,lol.

you may not care, but mdk 9.1 will likely run like a dog on that laptop. I would go with Jamd linux or Gentoo. Jamd is very easy, gentoo is more for people who have the time and inclination to figure it out, but it works well once you configure it.

for more info, visit the links below.

[Dolda2000]

Do other CDs work in the laptop? Some CD-ROMs have trouble reading CD-R disks.

[Hellmasker]

yeah i woudl be suspicous of ur cd drive too.

btw, i dont see any problem with the specs. Got plently of RAM so mdk should go fine.

That is an internal cd drive and not using pcmcia or something tricky right?

[Judeee]

Hello guys thanks for your replies. My cd drive works fine and i have used other cd's on it. the CD-R' s work fine. I have also set the bios to boot from cd first. It tries to boot from the cd and then it just loads windows xp.

[Dolda2000]

Does the laptop has BIOS anti virus protection enabled? Some BIOSes support this option, that, as far as I know, makes the computer refuse anything that doesn't look the Microsoft's boot loader.