The Digger's blog

Hi, I'd be really grateful for any help that anyone can give. I successfully installed Ubuntu 9.04 on a laptop inherited from a relative, but I now want to load LinuxMint instead. I got hold of an installation CD, but the problem is that when I put it in the drive, Ubuntu just totally fails to recognise what it is. I just get a message saying I've put a blank CD in the drive, and asking what I want to do with it. I know there's nothing wrong with the CD as it works fine on my Windows XP pc, and it's not the drive as Ubuntu quite happily recognises and plays CDs and DVDs. I've been into the bios and made the optical drive the primary boot source, but to no avail. I'm really worried because if I can't use *any* OS installation CDs in the future, then I'm stuck with Ubuntu. I'd really welcome some help, preferably in really basic, step by step plain English as I'm totally new to Linux. Thanks!