MiniMe live CD not booting on laptop

[Jimbo]

Last night I downloaded the MiniMe CD from http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/pclinuxos/live-cd/pclinuxos-kde-minime-2011.09.iso
Download went well, MD5 sum checked out perfectly.  Burned to CD using K3b, no problem.
It boots and runs perfectly on my old desktop.
However, on my HP Pavilion dv6-3120us notebook it won't get even to the first screen.  When it first starts to boot from the DVD drive, I get the following messages on cli-type background:

Isolinux 3.85 2010-02-20 ETCDIsolinux: Found something at drive = 91
Isolinux: Found something at drive = 90
Isolinux: Disc error 80, AX = 42EA, drive 90
Boot failed: press a key to retry

Pressing a key does nothing, I have to ctrl-alt-del to reboot, and it does the same again.
Please note, all of this happens BEFORE the pretty grub-type screen.  It never gets a chance to come up.
Laptop boots some other versions of linux without problems, some have a similar problem to this.  But I want to reinstall PCLinuxOS on this laptop, so want this one to boot properly!
Any ideas?

[rick0612]

Jimbo,

Are you using a rewritable  CD? If so and it was written on the desktop, the laptop may be having a problem reading it.
I've had this same issue and found that to be the cause.

Hope this helps,

Rick.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the suggestion Rick, but no, it's a CD-R and I actually burned it on the laptop.  The same laptop that now won't boot from it!

[djohnston]

Did you burn the CD at 4X speed or less? If so, try burning the CD on your desktop PC, if possible. It could be a quirk with your laptop DVD drive burning CDs, it could be the DVD drive is having problems with that brand of CD-Rs. It could be quite a few things.

[YouCanToo]

Thanks for the suggestion Rick, but no, it's a CD-R and I actually burned it on the laptop.  The same laptop that now won't boot from it!

I actually have the same issue with my Acer Laptop. I burnt some cd-r's on the laptop and it will not even read them, but the desktop reads them just fine. The cd-r's are FujiFilm. I bought some Maxwell cd-r's and they work just fine on the laptop and the desktop.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the suggestions.
djohnston, burned the cd on the desktop as you suggested.  Burned well and booted and ran perfectly on the desktop.  Tried on the laptop, no luck.  This time just the one-line message: "Isolinux: Disc error 80, AX = 42EA, drive 90"
YouCanToo, I am using memorex CDs.  I don't have any others currently, but if I get a chance I might try using another brand to see if that makes a difference.
It couldn't be something to do with where whatever it is looks for the CD as it's booting?

[djohnston]

Jimbo,

Doing a net search for "Isolinux: Disc error 80" shows the problem related to either:
     media incompatible with the drive
     less than optimum drive
     dirty lens in the optical drive
     fingerprints or smudges or scratches on the disk

Since this is a new burn, I doubt the disk has smudges or scratches. The media you burned works on your desktop drive, but not on your laptop. So, you could try cleaning the lens in your laptop drive, or use an external USB optical drive to boot from. Other than that, trying different brands of disks is all I can think of.

[Jimbo]

Thanks for the suggestions djohnston.  I should explain, I am dual booting the laptop with Win7 and PCLinuxOS, but want to do a clean install of PCLOS, hence downloaded MiniMe.
I am puzzled, as the computer reads the disc perfectly when running my current install of PCLOS.  I pop it in the drive, and can mount, read all files, copy the CD, whatever, so there doesn't seem to be a problem with physically reading it.  As yet, I have never had a problem with this optical drive reading anything once the computer is up and running.  But several versions of linux have the same booting problem.  I don't worry about the others because I just try them to keep up to date with what they're doing, but PCLOS is what I use every day, so I want to be able to do a clean install if I need to.
Anyway, have found a workaround.  On the desktop I used the utility in MiniMe to make a bootable USB stick.  Same iso file, same CD, running live on the desktop.  The USB stick version boots perfectly on the laptop, and this is what I will use next week for the fresh install.
It's a puzzling one, and I wonder how many others may be having the same problem.
Regards, and thanks again.

[djohnston]

Anyway, have found a workaround.  On the desktop I used the utility in MiniMe to make a bootable USB stick.  Same iso file, same CD, running live on the desktop.  The USB stick version boots perfectly on the laptop, and this is what I will use next week for the fresh install.

Well, that's good news.