Old Intel Duron PC with 256mb of RAM and 80GB HDD, had Windows XP on it, develops regular problems when tampered with by visitors to my home so I opted to install Mint onto it and thus prevent visitors from making system wide changes. When I first installed Mint onto it (yes, I succeeded once!) I had to do it through Windows because the PC failed to boot from CD ROM no matter what BIOS setting I used. When I clicked the Mint ISO I was prompted to either install Mint within Windows else allow Mint to alter the XP Boot Menu's choice of OS's such that I could boot the Mint Installer CD ROM. I chose to wipe Windows and load the disk via an option added to XP's boot menu. That option allowed me to install Mint 7 i386 KDE successfully. However, it ran too slow so I decided I would wipe everything and install the Gnome edition. Fortunately, since wiping Windows the PC will now boot from CD ROM. Unfortunately, I can't boot any Mint CD ROM inclusive of the one I successfully installed. I can boot other Live Disks but not Mint. Every time I try to boot Mint I get the error:
I believe the error relates to the kernal or boot image not being found. I also believe that if I enter its location after the boot prompt then I might be able to get the installation to start. I could be wrong but does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should type after the prompt? Can I install my own version of GRUB onto the HDD and point it directly to the necessary binary to get the install started?vesamenu.c32: attempted DOS system call
boot:
I have used UMBCD to clear the CMOS just in case that was the issue but the error still occurs. I've thought about re-installing XP and starting the installation from within XP again but I'd rather not do that.
All suggestions welcome except those of "re-burn it" and "re-download it". The problem won't be resolved that way. I've tried two separate downloads of two versions (7 and 8 ) and the problem remains so it has to be something else.