For those of you hanging around EFNet #cemetech or #omnimaga, you'll be familiar with this but anywho:

I'm having issues booting OSs from disc.

I boot up my computer, pop the install disc in and F1/any-key my way to booting from disc. This is where the fun times begin.

With Windows Seven RC, it'll start up but suddenly just stop working anywhere between the black "starting windows" screen and the beginning of the installer. I have once managed to get all the way to "expanding system files (0%)" on the install.

With Linux Mint live distro, it just stops working on the splash screen.

The CD/DVD drive does not display any sort of light indicating it's doing... anything and occasionally the drive fails to open if I press the tray open button after a reboot.

Is this a bad cable connection? A bad drive? Did I fubar my machine in some other manner? O_o

When was the last time you did a memtest? Can you boot your HDD's OS?

I forgot to clarify, whoops.

Everything is brand new. There is no OS installed yet.

[edit]
Okay, I'm confused now. Tried installing Seven again and it got to "expanding system files (42%).." before freezing up. I don't know what's fubar'ing anymore ._.

I'd start testing the RAM first. It's not uncommon for new RAM to fail out of the box. I just installed 80 4GB 2 stick kits and 7 of the 160 sticks tested bad out of the box.

Easiest way to test, is to go to http://www.myubcd.com/ and get the latest beta of Ultimate Boot CD. The file name is ubcd50b12.iso. It will have everything you'll need to test hard drives, RAM or anything else you can think of. There is a bug that will crash the disk on some of the tests. if it crashes use the GRUB4DOS menu. That usually fixes it.

Anyway, from there, go to the memory menu and let memtest86+ (BTW, you could just get memtest86+ from http://memtest.org/ if you dont' want to get the UBCD) run for a few hours (although if it's crashing like this, You should see failures immediately if it's RAM). If it starts running tons of red colored errors on the bottom of the screen, Remove and reinstall the RAM. If it's still failing, Get it RMA'd, and if it fails after that, It's Motherboard replacement time, especially if the RAM tests ok in another system.

If all of the above passes, you can use the UBCD to check the hard drive you have. just select the hard drive diagnostic for the drive you have and see if it fails.

if the hard drive passes, Then I'd suspect the Motherboard.

If you happen to have any old Ubuntu liveCD or install disk, you can run memtest straight from that. Anyway, Fryedsoft is right on the money, and I definitely think this sounds like a memory issue.

Tried running a copy of Ubuntu 5.10 off an old multi-distro disc and it just freezes on the language select screen.

I guess I should burn a disc with memtest86+ on it?

Didn't we tell you to just buy a computer from CompUSA?

The CompUSA that basically no longer exists?

But it's more and more sounding to me like your RAM is shot. Can you try running it with one or the other of the sticks only if you have more than one?

I have 2 2GB sticks. I'll try each one individually tomorrow. I've about had it with messing with the computer for the night. I need a couple hour break -_-;;

Yes, the same one I walked into and bought a Toshiba Portege M750 tablet last month (active Wacom digitizer ftw!)

Once again you are thinking about Circuit City, *NOT* CompUSA

Yes. And though you should get hoards of messages right off of the bat, if the tests pass, just keep it running for 10-24 hours. Sometimes it takes a while.

EDIT: Oh, and try reseating the RAM. (Take it out and plug it back in).

No, CompUSA closed a huge number of its stores. It only exists in a small number of areas now.

After a series of events, I've determined that one of my 2GB RAM sticks is bad and have removed it from the motherboard.

I'm now attempting to install Windows Seven again to see if it'll work. If so, problem solved. If not, I shall proceed to go crazy wondering what fubar'd now

[edit]
Expletive! It froze at "Expanding Windows files (33%) ..."
>_>

No, http://www.cemetech.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=84493#84493

I'm running Memtest right now. I'll leave it be all day. I'll post the results later this evening (10PM-12AM MST).

[edit]
After 10 hours, 48 minutes of Memtest I have 22 Passes, 0 Errors.

Try swapping out the optical drive and use a different IDE or SATA cable, depending.

Is this before or after you removed one of the sticks? With this pass, you should be able to install your OS now, unless this represents the result with both of the original sticks in your machine.

This is with only one RAM module. This confuses me though.

To expand on the post prior to my previous one:

I knew one of my two modules was faulty without memtesting it. If the computer doesn't boot with it the only ram module seated (slot 0, of course), then there must be something wrong with it, right? And yes, it was properly seated.

Anyway, I swapped it out for the other module (the one in now) and the computer booted. I proceeded to try installing win7. It froze at expanding files. So, I memtest it some days later and it comes out with 22 passes and 0 errors. So what's wrong now?

I had a talk with Xphoenix yesterday and he suggested I check the ISO file's MD5 hash. I generated it and compared it to the known hash and it came out 100% identical. The ISO file itself is fine.

So, I start wondering. Maybe my laptop just fails at burning ISOs with ImgBurn? It's possible. I have yet to verify the disc against the ISO though.

I am confused =/

I would check the disk, it is not uncommon and even more so with DVDs to have a bad burn, it has happened to me many a time. If you have a high bad disk rate try burning at 1X. the slower you burn the more chance of being error free. This is one feature I like about my mac is that every disk I burn is immediately verified I I am told the result, this results in a longer burning process but with less unknown errors. Given the memtest I would say it is very likely either a bad portion of the hdd that is not getting remapped and the installer is checking the write for correctness (unlikely), or it is a bad burn (very likely).

I tried verifying the disc with ImgBurn. Have no clue how exactly I'm supposed to read the results but it said the verification was successful so I guess that means it's good?

Anyway, tried re-burning the ISO at 1x write speed and installing. The installer again froze.

I guess the disc might be bad and I just suck at understanding ImgBurn?