My laptop's broke, BIOS doesn't recognise the HDD - I bought a new drive but still the same fault so I'm thinking the the drive controller is knackered...anyway...rather than fork out a fortune to get it fixed I thought I'd just use a live linux CD and carry on as normal but;

I've burnt the ISO to CD and it boots, gives me the options menu, I select 'Start/Install Ubuntu' but then it moans about not being able to open the port on ATA1. The CD works on my desktop PC so does it need a HDD to be present for temp. files etc or should it work with no HDD fitted?

Thanks

Your CD drive will most likely be hanging off ATA1 if it is an internal one.

If you have a USB cd drive etc try booting off that and you should get through. Other thing to do is to try pulling the HDD out of the laptop and try booting liek taht as the drive may be causing bus problems.

Have you checked the solder joints on the IDE connector on the mobo?

Your CD drive will most likely be hanging off ATA1 if it is an internal one.

If you have a USB cd drive etc try booting off that and you should get through. Other thing to do is to try pulling the HDD out of the laptop and try booting liek taht as the drive may be causing bus problems.

Have you checked the solder joints on the IDE connector on the mobo?

The HDD is already removed, had a quick look at the mobo but it's a bit of a tw@ to get to the IDE connector that's why I thought I'd try the Live CD. Might be worth ripping it to bits this weekend though to check those.

Ta

Problem is on a laptop both the CD ROM and IDE usually run off the ATA bus.

If one is knackered then the other probably is too :(