My computer won't boot up when I install my new DVD burner

Return the initial power supply if it was working.Then you have to check that the memory card and the hard disk are well fixed. You can do this by checking their details from the BIOS settings. If they are both OK i.e you can find their details in the bios, then you will have to boot from your operating system CD.If it is able to boot from this proceed with installation of the operating system. If you didn't find their details, then try and fix their connections tightly and repeat the process of checking the system information in the BIOS.

Media Player Codec Pack is my recommendation

http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10749065.html?tag=mncol

you can safely install up to a 80 GB HDD in that compaq. When getting into the bios go to the boot sequence section and change the boot squence to be CD=>HDD=>FLOPPY or FLOPPY=>CD=>HDD

Did you change the '1st boot' drive to the optical drive?
If you haven't, you need to enter the BIOS setup and change from C: to whatever your optical drive is named and then change it back once the operating system is installed on the C: drive.  

lol congrats! Have fun!

How long does the screen display that quote? Sometimes Linux will lock up completely at boot, but usually it will give a message such as "kernal panic" if it does; in your case, if the GRUB boot-loader is failing to find a kernal to boot, you may not have a valid boot-loader configuration file or installed operating system. Or, you may just need patience.
I suggest you try booting from a Live distro disc, such as Ubuntu (DVD), SuSE (DVD), or Damn Small Linux (this is probably the fastest, at only 50 MB) or DSL's Not Damn Small Linux (CD) which still has pretty minimal hardware requirements but includes more tools. Even DSL should let you view the files on your laptop's hard-disk drive and edit configuration files if there are issues.

Hi Ladyret,I have a dvd rom fitted to my Armada 500,it is a DVD-ROM DRIVE DV-28E part No_1977067B-43 by Hewlett-Packard Company,hope this helps you.

Very little information hadeks. You inserted a DVD & formated it or inserted a DVD/ RW disk & formated it. Burned some music/video to it & now it does not play. The only type of DVD that needs formated is a DVD/RW.

Make sure your PC supports the format. If your PC does not support the format, music or video your PC will not play it.
ex: mp3, wma, avi & mpeg ect.
Take a look at these two links. They may help you to understand formats for DVD's.
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/dvd4.htm

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Hardware_Software/2003/DVDFormatsExplained.asp

http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download/

Any questions? Feel free to ask.
Good luck!

Mike

Try here & it's not a bad price either.
http://pchub.com/uph/laptop/38-4978-1511/Compaq-Armada-E500-HDD-Caddy-Cable-Adapter.html

Good luck & have a great day!

Simple things first: Assuming the CD drive is removable, remove it from the laptop then re-iinsert it making sure it's pushed home properly so that the connectors seat properly.

If, again, the drive is in a bay (i.e. it's removable) then it may be the connectors are worn/damaged. If it's the drive connector then it may be repairable or you might pick up another drive, perhaps on eBay. It may also be that the drive has simply given up the ghost - so back to eBay :) If the connectors on the laptop have got damaged then you're looking at dismantling the laptop to repair/replace them, if that's possible.

If it's an external drive then the advice is very similar - check out the connectors first. If they look OK then you probably have to suspect the drive itself.

For either type of drive, there is always the small chance that the IDE controller channel on the motherboard has died - I have seen this happen in rare cases. Your options then are a bit limited. IIRC, that PC has no USB2 and even if it did, it wouldn't boot from a USB CD. You can get a PCMCIA interface card (now called simply PC interface) for an external CD. Depending on the card-drive interface, you might be able to boot from that.

If you need to install software onto the machine & have another (desktop) PC to hand: remove the disc from the E500, get a 2 1/2 to 3 1/2" disc adapter & temporarily attach the drive to the desktop as a secondary (i.e. not boot) disc. You can then load software onto the drive although you can't do a Windows install that way. If the machine already has an old version of windows on it, you can copy for example, the XP install files onto the drive, put it back in the machine & run an upgrade. Not the most desirable result but may be OK.