New newbie

[Stephen Bennett]

Hello everyone. From an extremely new newbie. I have a Ubuntu live CD 
which is supposed to let me try out Linux before deciding finally to 
ditch Windows. No matter what I do I can't get the thing to boot my 
computer which is a Compaq Presario that I bought this year and which 
has on it XP Professional.

Can anyone suggest something. Do I have a duff disk or is XP 
particularly resistant. I've been through the help menu on the disk and 
tried various ways of kidding my machine into doing it but have failed 
completely. Although by no means an expert in these matters - and 
certainly not in the league of most of the people contributing to this 
list - I don't consider myself handless either.

Now, if  I'm being completely stupid, let me down gently. But the disk 
says press enter and your machine will reboot, but it doesn't.

Thanks for your time.

-- 
Stephen Bennett