Cannot boot with CD

I have been trying to run Linux Mint and Ubuntu off the CD. So far it has been a long exercise in futility. I kept getting the kernel sync messages and told to reboot with noapic option, in both standard and compatibility modes. None of the instructions or advice I could find online for noapic were correct. I eventually figured to hit Tab with the boot option selected and added noapic after the text string. I've no idea if that is correct.

The standard boot gives a page of text and hangs at a prompt that will not allow typing. Manually turning off the PC is required.

In compatibility mode, after an interminable time I end up with an annoying daily witticism followed by mint(at sign)mint ~ $ . Not very helpful and does not look much like a desktop.

Hi and Welcome !

Could you post your machine's specs here? How did you burn .iso images of Mint and Ubuntu?

I burned the iso image in Nero, Recorder > Burn Image. The PC has a recovery partition but I could navigate easily to the Boot Menu and then boot the CD.

Windows: Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (Build 2600)
Internet Explorer: 7.0.5730.11
Memory (RAM): 896 MB
CPU Info: Intel(R) Celeron(R) D CPU 3.20GHz
CPU Speed: 3192.4 MHz
Sound Card: Realtek HD Audio output
Display Adapters: ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 Series | ATI RADEON XPRESS 200 Series | NetMeeting driver | RDPDD Chained DD
Monitors: 1x; Plug and Play Monitor | Plug and Play Monitor |
Screen Resolution: 1024 X 768 - 32 bit
Network: Network Present
Network Adapters: Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC - Packet Scheduler Miniport
CD / DVD Drives: I: DVDRW LIGHTSCRIBE 18X | J: HL-DT-STRW/DVD GCC-4482B
Ports: COM3 LPT1
Mouse: 3 Button Wheel Mouse Present
Hard Disks: C: 23.3GB | D: 84.0GB | E: 4.4GB
Hard Disks - Free: C: 4.8GB | D: 51.1GB | E: 2.6GB
USB Controllers: 3 host controllers.
Firewire (1394): 1 host controllers.
Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
Product Make: T3516A
AC Power Status: OnLine
BIOS Info: AT/AT COMPATIBLE | 10/25/06 | A M I - 10000625
Time Zone: Removed
Battery: No Battery
Motherboard: ELITEGROUP RC410-M
IP Address: 192.168.1.XX |
MAC Address: 00-19-21-XX-XX-XX
Host Name: Removed

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In compatibility mode, after an interminable time I end up with an annoying daily witticism followed by mint(at sign)mint ~ $

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That's standard for Mint when you open the terminal. May be a problem with the graphics card as ATI cards can be problematic with Linux. At the prompt you get (indicated above) have you tried typing: sudo startx (prompted for your user password) to see what happens?

Can you check the inittab file to see what runlevel you are booting into? At the prompt again, type: cat /etc/inittab to see the output. Near the top of the file, there should be a line similar to:

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id:5:initdefault:

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Where the number 5 is above, you should see a 4 or 5, not sure about Mint. If it 3, change it. Need to use sudo to edit this file: sudo gedit /etc/inittab.

Post results.

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Originally Posted by yancek

That's standard for Mint when you open the terminal. May be a problem with the graphics card as ATI cards can be problematic with Linux. At the prompt you get (indicated above) have you tried typing: sudo startx (prompted for your user password) to see what happens?

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How would I know to type that? The manual shows the boot screen and the next item is the desktop. Anything in between, forget it! There are no instructions or information. As I said earlier, the instructions I had to surf for for aren't even correct for adding "noapic" in the boot menu.

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Can you check the inittab file to see what runlevel you are booting into? At the prompt again, type: cat /etc/inittab to see the output. Near the top of the file, there should be a line similar to:
...........
Where the number 5 is above, you should see a 4 or 5, not sure about Mint. If it 3, change it. Need to use sudo to edit this file: sudo gedit /etc/inittab.
Post results.

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I have no idea what sudo is. Sadly this is what I expected with Linux. It's like someone using Windows for the first time and expecting them to use Command Line with no guide. I'll have a go at what has been suggested and report back. Thanks for the comments.

I tried entering "cat /etc/inittab" and got "no such file or directory"

I tried entering "sudo gedit /etc/inittab" and got:
(gedit: 2849) Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display

Remember that I'm booting off the disk, not installing the software.

At least with Mint I'm getting the Mint boot menu. When I try Ubuntu, it immediately tries to start and give the same noapic stuff and says to boot with some debug option and then with the noapic option. How on Earth can you set an option when the disk boots straight away? There's no Ubuntu boot menu to set an option.

Let's start from scratch. When machine boot up from Ubuntu, does any thing appear on screen?
Have you try to press any key at startup?
Which version of Ubuntu are you using?

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Originally Posted by devils casper

Let's start from scratch. When machine boot up from Ubuntu, does any thing appear on screen?
Have you try to press any key at startup?
Which version of Ubuntu are you using?

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Ubuntu 10.10. Your comment re: key press prompted me to hit Esc as soon as Ubuntu started to boot. That brought up the language option. Use of "Esc" is not mentioned anywhere in the Ubuntu run instructions and not on the page where it tells you to boot with the noapic option. For psychics only.

After messing around and finding the noapic option, it resumed boot and terminated with "(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system". The HDD continued churning away at something, not reading the CD at all.

Just to make sure, you did set your bios to boot from CD? Have you tried another distro, such as Ulitmate, Crunchbang, Lubuntu or Legacy OS?

How did you burn .iso image of Ubuntu? Did you verify MD5SUM of downloaded image?