dell inspiron 3500 cant boot from cd

Theres an option in the BIOS to boot from cd and everyone elses inspiron 3500 seems to boot from cd. But no matter what order I put it in the BIOS it wont boot anything (linux live/win install/etc) from cd. hrm...
I flashed the BIOS and dont know anything else to do.
Its a plug & play kind of cd drive. I got it to install windows from cd by using the floppy to boot. But I really need to boot from cd.
suggestions?

 

Im 100% sure any bootable cd doesnt work. However, Last night I decided to hook the laptop hd to my desktop and copy the win98 files for installation.

just for kicks I reformated c: /s (the 3rd time), but this time from my desktop and not a 98 floppy.
Then cp the win98 files to it.
Put the hard drive back in along with the cd, and !!!! It booted from cd!

the ONLY thing I did different was format the hard drive while connected to a desktop. I was just planning on running setup from the hard drive, but cd booted & installed fine!

I cant believe that would be the solution though. But im happy it works now!