I have a home built system: Intel MB (w/ built in boot from CD capability), a P4-1.6 ghz CPU, 1 Gb Ram, a Maxtor 300gb SATA drive, and a Sony DRU 820A CD/Dvd writter with 1.0c bios upgrade. Running Windows XP Pro SP2.

I'm having all sorts of problems running Puppy 2.13. So far I've made 3 mutisession DVDs and 2 CD-RWs of this OS - and none of them have faired well at shutdown. Seems like I get a bunch of missing /folder directory or file creation error crapola, and then the (CD_RW or DVD - whichever disc type was being used to boot) drive starts writting back to the disc. However, on Reboot, I go back into Windows XP instead of Back into Puppy - and the CD or DVD disk is readable there - but rendered useless to reboot with.

The DVD/CD drive supports Multisession disks in Windows XP, and despite using Burncdcc - it apparently doesn't completely - if at all -in Puppy Linux. Over the last 3 days, I've spent a countless hours trying to configure Puppy to suit my tastes - only to end up having to start over from scratch. Is there something I'm doing wrong here. Should I be configuring puppy to see this drive or ??? I'm pulling my hair out here literally << see I only have 3 hairs left LOL ...

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

OK well first off, Multi-session Discs are quite unstable. If you have a DVD-RW Multi-session disc, it's pointless, you can always go and erase RW's anyway. I've used CDR's for my linux boot discs.

Second of all I'll have to explain this in more detail...

A Live CD is typically an OS running from a temporary section of your hard-drive and managed with your Ram and CD. Therefore spending too long on the live CD would cause the PC to crash because it's run out of the RAM and Hard-Disk Temporary Space (I'm pretty sure it also uses hard-drive cache). This is the reason why you cannot keep any settings or new documents created in your session. Live CD's also have a tendency to crash when you try to Log Off, Suspend, Restart or Shutdown your computer. Generally the only way to shut down your computer is to simply hold the power button for 5-10 seconds.

The only way you can tackle this problem is to actually install the Operating system to your hard drive. Choose the one you like best, then slap it onto your hard drive. Simple as!

If your not sure how to do this, and you want to keep XP or any other Windows OS, you can find a good guide. Click here for a guide that shows you what to do on videos - It helped me tremendously!!!

Good luck mate,
Dan