Poll: WIN95 won't install in new system-CDROM problem, OS or me?

[rayjay]

Having heck of a time installing OS for my newly built system. Satisfied I have a good boot disk. When I make Bios try to boot from CD, I get CD failure then "starting windows95." CD spins, nothing happens. When I try to boot from floppy, same thing happens. When I try to boot from HDD1 I get a C prompt. I type "setup.exe" but no soap.
Only one HDD installed, it's formatted/partitioned.
CDROM drive is installed to new HDD.
Nothing plugged in but video.

One further observation:
PCI Device Listing has: ACPI controller irq9 - but no other parameters. Is that okay.

Any input greatly appreciated.

RayJay