Slimnote 9te - no boot, Averatec 1050 - yes boot

[Phydeaux]

I am a linux noob, but here's what I tried:

This was on a Twinhead Slimnote 9TE-233TZ, Bios version: R1.07 (233MHz, 128MB)
CD-ROM: Toshiba XM-1602B, firmware 1132
HDD: 5GB in two 2.5GB partitions (with Win98 currently installed)

I tried installing Puppy 1.0.8r1 from CD, 'Normal boot' (ACPI off and on) and 'run in ramdisk'. After a minute or so, this is what I ended up with each time:

Loading vmlinuz...............
Loading image.gz...isolinux: Disk error 20, AX = 4200, drive FF

Boot failed: press a key to retry...

I looked around on the forum, but didn't find anything that seemed like the same error.

To make sure the disc wasn't bad, I tried it on an Averatec 1050 (1.1 GHz Pentium M, 512MB) and it booted fine. Audio worked, but I didn't try the integrated wireless.

-Phydeaux

(edit: added HDD info)

[Flash]

The problem may be in the Slimnote's CD drive. I have a computer with two different (DVD) drives in it, one from NEC and one from Emprex. A 1.0.8r1 multisession DVD-RW boots all the way to the desktop from the NEC drive but only starts to boot from the Emprex then stops and says it can't find usr/cram.fs on the DVD. The Emprex seems to work fine otherwise. I found the latest firmware for the Emprex on the manufacturer's website and flashed the drive with it, but Puppy still won't boot in it.