Swapping Cd-Rom Drives

So I have this old computer running win 98. I wanted to format the hd and put Damn Small Linux on it just to kind of experiment and see what other options I have. Only problem is when I put the cd in the cd rom and try to boot up it won't read the boot image on the disc. I have it set to boot cd-rom first and made sure that the image on the disk was bootable by trying it on another pc.
I had the idea that it might be the old "master" cd-rom drive(samsung cd master 32e model scr-3232) that was having a problem reading the image so I thought I would set the "slave"(Hp cd-writer plus 7200 series) as the master which happens to be a newer drive and actually has the capability to write instead of just read. So I took the samsung totally out of the machine and set the jumper settings on the hp to master hooked up the IDE cable and power and booted it up but nothing happened just a blank screen, the bios screen does not even appear. I just want the Hp drive set to master and have it as my only drive.Do I have to do something with the bios to get this to work?

Bios: AMIBIOS version 1.00.05.DNOR