LINUX 64bit DVD boots fine for you?
i am making this post via a Ubuntu 64 bit live cd.
my point was a USB bootable DVD drive to test the water - maybe another DVD drive brand can do it (maybe borrow one). You are free consult paid support but I doubt you will have a better outcome.
borrowing a dvd might be an option in order to pursue the one variable i havent been able to eliminate: the dvd drive (which has the latest firmware, 2.1a was the newest i could find, and already had). i'll start asking people to borrow their dvd, lol i dont want to spend anymore money to fix this out of the principle of the thing.
having been there once, i will concede that paid support is a joke. i already paid through the nose for w7. i'd consider taking it back for my $400, but i had to open the boxes to find out they dont work! i tried having this argument a few times with retailers in the past.
"Sorry, the minimum system requirements are on the box, we cannot refund opened software"
"My PC exceeds the system reqs, and it still doesn't work."
"Then you need to speak with the manufacturer."
"I didnt purchase it from the manufacturer, i bought it from you and it doesn't work as advertised. i want my money back.
"Sorry, we cannot refund opened software."
rinse, repeat until nauseous.
Please dont take this the wrong way, I'm not faulting the people who have freely spent their time and energy to try and help a poor MS sucker out. I'm just trying to figure out how MS convinced most of us that their overpriced software and draconian business practices are worth all this bending over backwards to get their
flagship OS to work.
This whole 'incompatible hardware' jive was why i stayed away from vista. Now it's more of the same. Even if you DONT have incompatible hardware, your hardware still may be incompatible.
if MS wants to justify it's ridiculous pricing, they need their product to work a tad better than this. Suggesting to my mom to 'just do a usb flash drive boot' is NOT a solution. Thats something we linux admins have to do to get some wierd motherboard or somesuch to do what we want. It's not a valid install path for something that every-short-attention-span commercial i've seen touts it's super-duper usability.
maybe my whole rant will be moot once/if i find another dvd drive that likes these specific discs.