Why won't my computer boot from XP CD?

[Kuroyama]

Putting together a new system (MB here) for my parents. I took a HD and CD from an old eMachines, so the HD already has Win98. I put the XP-Home CD in the CD drive, and boot up the new machine but it keeps trying to load Win98 (and fails to find appropriate drivers, so it goes to a wizard). If I disconnect the HD then it'll boot from the XP CD, but of course it runs into trouble when it tries to install on a nonexistent HD. Tried changing the boot order in BIOS to Floppy-CDROM-HD, but it still goes to Win98.

There must be something simple I can do to get the computer to boot from the CD so I can install XP. Any ideas?

 

[Ronstang]

Enter the setup utility (BIOS) when you first boot up and check to make sure the system tries to boot from the CD-ROM before the HD. That is what it sounds like.

 

[Bobsled]

Looks like you got this one handled Ron.