CD drive not booting in bios

hello

im trying to format my hard drive but bios wont load the cd.

when I set my cd drive to boot first it boots as per usual but after the DMI pool data it says "Boot from CD/DVD : _"

but it doesn't ask me to press the any key, it just stops there, taunting me.

I've checked the connection and used multiple drives, disks and cables trying to get it to work... even a tried a different motherboard...

ya im at a loss

help me techRepublic, your my only hope(well other than the rest of the interwebs).

-Pat