I had a thought. If your computer is really old, it is possible that your CMOS battery is out, which is losing your settings, including your hard drive settings. Confirm this by checking the time in Setup.
Once you burn the CD, go into Setup on your computer. Check the setting which specifies your computer's boot order. Make sure it boots from the CD before the Hard Drive, so it will boot from the Linux CD. Once it is changed, put the CD in and restart the computer.
If you successfully change the order, and it gives you the message again, then odds are your CMOS battery is dead and the settings are not being saved. If it is successful, explore Linux a bit and you will find a Word Processor. You can use a floppy disk to save it as you work on it. I would be more specific about Linux, but I'm not at my house right now.
See you tomorrow.
Edited by computerwiz12890, 01 December 2005 - 01:45 PM.