wiped drive

[Leann]

I know this is going to sound easy but I have tried and exhausted all advice. I have 2 computers on my desk at home one is mine and is empty except for the basic DOS and that is all it will do nothing at all the best I can get it to do is say "that application (or program ) cannot be read in dos mode" when I put in a floppy. I am trying to get a version of Linux on it I have the CD for Fedora core 1 but I cannot get it onto the computer. It will not recognize my cd drive. I realize I probably need a driver but have yet to find a floppy version that the computer will open.      * The other computer seems to have a boot problem it boots into a loop I can boot it into DOS with the same DOS boot disk as the other computer but I can't seem to figure out what it needs unfortunatly since the second is not mine it is not a priority since I am a non-traditional Computer student trying to finnish classwork. my classmates all have different ideas about the problem, unfortunatly,  none are correct, yet. I am getting desparate. I know there is probably some basic clue I am missing. Or I am not as bright as I thought. If anyone can help or at least point me in the right direction I would be eternally grateful. :-/

[Computer Hope Admin]

If the computer is not recognizing the CD drive when you're booting from the floppy it's most likely that the floppy does not contain the necessary files to load the CD-ROM drive. May want to use a different boot disk, or create a boot diskette with the appropriate drivers. You could also use the boot disks from http://www.bootdisk.com

Also often many of the Linux distributions on CD are bootable. May want to try booting from the CD and see if that works. If you cannot boot from the CD make sure that your boot options are properly setup in CMOS.

[Rob Pomeroy]

If your BIOS is so old that booting from a CD is not possible, you need the Smart Boot Manager.  Have a look for it in the software FAQ (see the link in my signature).