Joel wrote in

Until you give enough information so other won't have to make
newer wild
guess, all I can do is giving you the very basic simple general answer

1. BIOS, you can see CD-ROM and other storage devices from about
2 or more
locations. To select booting from CD-ROM you will need to go
to the
booting order selection from a specific MENU

I have tried the boot order menu in the BIOS. The DVD drive is not on
the list of available devices to boot from.

I can also press F11 during the POST to get a different boot order list
for the current session. Here, my DVD drive IS available to boot from. I
select it (with a proven bootable disk in the drive), and all I get is a
blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.



2. On some (not ALL) BIOS, it may give you the option to press F8
during
booting to displaying the booting selection, and if the CD-ROM
is working then it should show the CD-ROM option. It's still
better to set BIOS to boot from CD-ROM (first) for installation.

This "F8" option is from the BIOS *not* Windows, or you have
option to
press F8 to boot to SAFE MODE

I can also press F11 during the POST to get a different boot order list
for the current session. Here, my DVD drive IS available to boot from. I
select it (with a proven bootable disk in the drive), and all I get is a
blank screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.