[Adrian]

Hi, I've made a bit of a school boy error and hoped that somebody here might be able to point me in the right direction.

I got my wife a 10v a few days ago, it came with XP pre loaded. Cut a long story short I tried installing Ubuntu using the Netbootin method within Windows and I think I have reformatted or at least partially wiped the drive. On boot up I am getting this error screen:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting PXE ROM.

I can go into Bios using F2 ( the Bios is set to A00) and have tried creating a USB flash install of Ubuntu and booting from that, but still keep getting the above screen, even when I select USB from boot options. It could be that I haven't made the USB booter correctly?

I was going to try and install OSX using one of the guides, but don't know if this will work either ( I have 2 Macs but no PC ). Really I guess what I'm asking is, does anybody know if this screen is bad news or could I go for a Snow Leopard clean install and completely reformat the drive?

I don't have a CD drive available today to run the restore disc, but will see if I can get one if need be.

[dch]

You get that error when the mini goes through the boot order set in the bios and none of the devices on the list are valid boot devices. So it tries to network boot. My guess is that your hard drive has been repartitioned/formatted so xp is gone and your usb thumb drive is not configured correctly.

If you're going ubuntu, I believe there are specific instructions on how to create a boot device and install UNR (netbook remix). Since you have two macs, perhaps you should look at Mechdrew's guides and go SL.

[Adrian]

Thanks, that's what I was hoping to hear! I'll try an SL install tomorrow and hopefully be able to give my wife her mini back soon..

[Adrian]

Just want to say a big thanks to the forum members. I finally installed SL on this netbook following Mechdrew's guide for OS X installs. Very easy to follow instructions and when sound etc. wasn't working a quick search on here soon got the answer that I had to just re run Netbootmaker.

The mini is now running SL smooth as butter and I have a happy wife again! Cheers

[lfzguud]

well, now after doing a restore on 10.6.1 backup, I too am getting that message. Nothing I do in the setup area will get anything else to bootup - not even the good usb I have.

Any ideas?

UPDATE: After much fiddling I finally got it to work again, booted from USB, ran NIB 8.3RC3 and all went well from there.
Turns out after running the NIB from the boot USB it defaulted to the network boot - took some fiddling but it's fixed now.