Cannot boot to Linux LiveCD on a quad-core PC

[txlibdem]

It just sits there (with either a blank screen on KDE or a frozen screen on Gnome versions). The hard drive light is lit and never goes out.

My system is pretty old (5 years)
Intel Q8660 I think (quad core 2.2GHz)
2G of Ram
IDE CD/DVD drive that I'm trying to boot from

The system normally runs XP off an old 300GB IDE drive partitioned into C: and D: of about 80Gig and 100Gig (with wasted space left over... dont ask).

I did not want to take a chance on messing up my XP so I disconnected all drives except a 750Gig Sata2 drive. Could that be causing the problem? The 750Gig drive in not partitioned nor formatted... that's where I wanted to install the Linux to (my system can boot from a Sata drive according to the info I read at the time I bought all the parts - it boots fine from a flash drive).

PS, I'm using Linux Mint both 32 bit ver 10 LiveCD, ver 12 32-bit, and ver 12 64-bit with the same results: the liveCD will not boot, just gets about 1/3 of the way through the boot process and then seems to hang, the Hard Drive light on steady in all cases. PPS, all 3 of these discs boot just fine in my laptop (Toshiba Satellite, intel processor 1.6 GHz).

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

1. the HDD is probably the problem

My advice: write an install ISO of the Linux distro you'd like to install and try booting from that.
If that works, go ahead and install.

If you want to access this drive using Windows, you may need to use windows to partition and format before doing the Linux install.

best of luck

[txlibdem]

2. Thanks for the quick response

I was wondering if the HDD being SATA2 had anything to do with it.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

3. I would say that it is unlikely.