I'm encountering boot failure while trying to install a Linux distro from a CD. I'm using an older PC; here are its specs:

HP Pavilion a255c 2.66GHz CPU, 512MB RAM with a BIOS revision of 6/30/2003

I reclaimed an older drive (Seagate ST340810A) that seems to be working, as it's recognized in the BIOS (auto-detected). So this is not the original HDD, but a replacement.

I downloaded a mini.iso of Ubuntu 10.10 that I want to install, and burned the image to a CD for install.

My boot sequence is: First Boot Device [CDROM]. I disabled devices 2-4 so I can just force it to read first from the CD-ROM.

This old PC also has a separate CD writer which is a Sec.Slave. The Sec.Master is the Toshiba DVD/ROM DSM-171 drive where I placed the burned Linux CD.

With these settings I cannot get it to boot. I get the message

"DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

when I start the pc with the cd (burned iso image).

Would I be able to boot off a usb flash drive? Would that work?