Suse Linux Professional 9.3

I have been a Linux user for a few years having been through several versions of Red Hat on a number of machines.

Last week I bought Suse 9.3 and tried to install on my Sharp MR70 laptop. The hard drive is partioned to dual boot either Red Hat Linux or Windows XP. My plan was to overwrite Red Hat with Suse.

The installation started off OK, however after probing the hardware it tried to read the software packages off CD1. At this point the CD drive started to make unpleasant noises as it tried to locate the data. Eventually, it stopped and I was presented with a list of choices for the system, hardware, parbreastions etc. However, under "software" was a error message - no packages found. I aborted the installation and was next presented a screen which allowed me to verify the CD. I did so and the message said that the CD was damaged.

I tried the installation 2 more times just in case it decided to work. It did not. I tested next tested it be attempting to install on a desktop - same problem. I booted to Windows and read the files on the drive, the packages subdirectory was unreadable.

I buttumed that it really was no more than a damaged CD and returned it to the retailer who replaced it. However, the replacement copy performed in exactly the same way. I contacted the local agent who obtained from the retailer the copy that I had returned. The agent tested it and found it worked fine on his machines. He concluded that my CD drive was malfunctioning and I should check it thoroughly.

The CD drive has never given me a problem in 4 years, however after attempting to install Suse 9.3 several times and hearing scary noises each time, I found that when I booted to Windows, the CD no longer worked.

Not convinced that the drive was at fault, I decided to scrub the Red Hat parbreastion and install again from CD. It worked fine and I can mount the CD drive no problem.

I checked that the BIOS recognised the drive - it does. I re-booted to Windows and checked device manager which noted that the driver had been installed, but Windows was unable to access the drive - Code 41 was referred to. I obtained an updated CDROM driver from the Sharp website, but it does not install as no .INF file can be found.

Does anyone out there have any idea what may be causing the problem? Also, could I install via my desktop which is networked to the laptop? If so, how would I do this, I did RTFM, but cannot find the answer. Novell's technical support website also does not provide the information I looked for.

TIA

Graham Hicks