Help, I'm Going Insane

Ok, here is my situation so far.

I have this really old laptop that I am messing around with.

I wanted to try to install Windows 98 just for kicks (and since it came originally with that) so I downloaded stuff from allbootdisks.com and made a boot disk. I then proceeded to format the drive and try to create a new partition with Win 98 on it.

This has failed, so now I want to try to put DSL (Damn Small Linux) on it, but the only boot form of that is through a CD and the CD drive for the laptop won't open until it is booted and it has no OS but to put on and OS I need to put in a CD but to put in a CD I need an OS! I'm caught in a deadly catch 22! Unless one of you brilliant people can save me.

Wait, why do you need an OS on the HDD to boot from disk? That doesn't make sense.

Well, I need a CD to install an OS (DSL), but the CD drive won't open to let me have the CD in there to install the OS. How can I get that to open so I can boot from it?

I have the CD all ready to install DSL and when the computer starts I press the button to open the CD drive but it won't open for some reason until it starts up. What can I do?!?

Well first press whatever the button is on the BIOS screen to enter the setup and change the primary boot device to the CD drive. Also, if you can't manage to pop it open in time, you could do it manually. Every CD tray since the dawn of time (minus some shitty integrated ones like macs) have a small hole that you can stick a paper clip in and pop the tray out manually when the PC is off.

how about booting with a floppy, then inserting the CD? Im sure you could find a Linux boot disk that could fireup the CD after its booted.

you could just turn the computer on, let the os load, open the cd drive, stick the cd in there, restart the machine, then boot from the cd.

are these enough suggestions for ya?

Thanks to Drumz0rz, I managed to get the CD tray open.
Thanks to some sleep, I am thinking a tad more logically.
However, the comp still won't boot the CD when it starts (I gaurantee that the first thing it is booting is the CD), and when it starts, it immediately goes into a DOS, displaying "C:/>" and will respond to nothing I do.
I did write the ISO on a an RW, is that a problem?
Any other help, I'm getting kinda desperate.

when you burned the cd, did you burn is as an image or did you burn it as a data cd?

I used BURNCDCC to burn the iso to the cd...so probably data disk.

You want to make sure the CD is burned as the data not just the single iso file (iso files are images of disks) also you want to make sure that it is checked off as bootable, and finalized.

It's the CD drive!!!

I figured it out.

The drive is broken, or at the very least, not functioning. That pretty much explains everything.

The only thing it doesn't explain, what do I do now?

given the suggestion that the laptop is old; perhaps the drive is too old to read a RW disc?

I would suggest you look into network installs for an OS, or purchase Windows 98 on floppies!