[bobeverywhere]

I just finished burning the Fedora iso's. It starts to boot from the first cd, then I get a bad media/check cable error. Are the iso's bad?

[danleff]

Did you check the iso files to see if they had the correct md5sum? This would be the first thing to check.

Possibly a bad burn also. Did you do the media check before starting the install?

Did you use cdrw's or cdr media? It is not unusual, especially older cdrom drives, choke with cdrw's

You also need to keep in mind that you need to burn the iso's at a very slow speed. Iso files like to be burned at 4X or 8X speed at the most.

[iamroot]

I used to have that same problem when i just started out using linux. I burnt all the cds only to realsie that all of them were bad. Anyway ur prob right. The ISOs are bad. Possibly its the burning process. Just check the md5 checksum by doing this.

md5sum iso name

And keep the burning at a medium speed.

[bobeverywhere]

How do I check the md5sum? I know the "md5sum iso name" part but where do I do that? Command Prompt...? My only OS is still WinXP.

[tchung]

Hello,

You can check the media by typing 'linux mediacheck' at the boot: prompt when you boot from Fedora Core media (CD or DVD).

Thomas Chung
FedoraNEWS.ORG (http://fedoranews.org)

[martouf]

there are md5sum checkers available for Windows.

read all about it here, then get your own copy.

ps: found it by doing a google search of "md5sum windows"

[bobeverywhere]

Thanks, I was never quite sure how to do the "md5sum" part. Even if I can't get this working, at least I learned something. I've checked all 4 iso's and all 4 match perfectly. I also tried burning at several speeds, 4x-52x (on CD-R), and all of them still give me a bad media/check cable error. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

[bobeverywhere]

Here's the exact screen I get when I try to boot off the first CD, hope it helps:

Intel® Boot Agent FE v4.1.10
Copyright © 1997-2003, Intel Corporation

Intel® Boot Agent PXE Base Code(BA1210BC-GW1)
Copyright © 1997-2003, Intel Corporation

PXE-E61: Media test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel Boot Agent

[danleff]

Go into the bios and turn off the option to boot from the network. There should be an entry in the boot sequence that reads, "boot to LAN" or "PXE."

See if this allows the boot to occur from the cd.

Make sure that you have an entry, the first option, to boot from cd.

[bobeverywhere]

Thanks for bearing with me, this whole thing has made me feel really stupid...

That boot thing actually had nothing to do with Fedora, for some reason the bios switched to boot from network as danleff said.

Has anyone used Nero 6 to burn their iso's before? Now I can't get them to boot, is there a special setting to make a CD bootable? I've checked the boot order and made sure that my cd drive is first up, it checks the cd (the light blinks for a bit) then it continues on to WinXP

Thanks for your patience!

[danleff]

I've got Nero 5.5, which should be the same.

You need to burn the image, not as a data disk. Look at the disk you already burned, if the ISO file is there only, this is the problem.

To burn the image and make it bootable, you need to get to the main window, Choose from the dropdown window, File--> burn image, then choose the iso file to burn.

Another issue, burn at a slow speed, like 4X or 8X, as iso images don't like to be burned at a fast speed. Stay away from burning at the fast speeds.

When the cd is done, you should see (when you view the cd) a list of directories and files, not just the iso file.

[bobeverywhere]

I've been burning the image every time and I still can't get it to boot. Do the partitions already have to be ready to get it to read? I've done everything I can think of to get it to boot and I've spen 3 or 4 hours on google and I can't find anything.

I have the SRPMS iso's...are those the wrong ones?

FC2-i386-SRPMS-discX.iso not FC2-i386-diskX.iso

[bobeverywhere]

Sorry to waste all of your time, upon further research i did get the wrong set. I'll probably be back in a month or 2 when I finish downloading the other set.

[Dapper Dan]

Download and burn these:

FC2-i386-disc1.iso
FC2-i386-disc2.iso
FC2-i386-disc3.iso
FC2-i386-disc4.iso

[bobeverywhere]

Is this the right bittorrent version? (just to make sure this time)

tettnang-binary-i386-iso.torrent
Official Fedora Core 2 FINAL binary iso images for i386. 2.1GB

I'm in dialup, so theres no way I can keep a connection long enough to download an entire iso in one shot.

[Dapper Dan]

I'm not smart enough to get bit torrent working so I'm afraid I wouldn't know. Sorry. Have you considered just oredering the CDs? There are a number of places where you can get them at a very minimal cost.

You can get all 4 CDs here for a mere $4.95.

[martouf]

sorry, a download connection can't be helped by using bittorrent.
the bandwidth is too small to see any improvement from bittorrent.

Words of Wisdom: Never underestimate the bandwidth of an envelope full of CDROMs

sure, the latency is a beatch, but the bandwidth is tremendous! 8)

[bobeverywhere]

I know bittorrent doesn't improve my download speed, the only reason I keep it around is to resume downloads. Having a second phone line is great, I can keep it connected 24/7, so I should have this done within a week, and save 5 bucks.

[danleff]

What OS are you using to download Fedora now? There are various packages that you can use to resume downloads, depending on what OS you are using. Remember, Bittorrent is designed to also use your bandwith to help others with their downloads. The idea is to share bandwith.

In Linux, there is gftp and in Windows SmartFTP, as examples of programs what will resume downloads.

SmartFTP can be found here, where gftp is usually included in most Linux distros, or available on the install cd's (or by download).

[martouf]

I hear ya, bobeverywhere, but consider: (not including the value of your time)
you've probably already spent $2.00 burning four discs you can't boot from
(the SRPMs), and now you're going to spend another $2.00 burning four more
discs which might boot.

What's so bad about spending $4.95 for 4 CDs which will boot?