Well .... I feel kind of stupid
. Yes, i DO know how to start a CD manually Mobo as you explained, however, I've been referring to some instructions on how to format the HD and install a fresh operating system (taken from lifehacker.com). In THESE instructions the advice was as follows:
"This part is important: do NOT run the Windows Installation from Windows itself. Shut down first and then boot up the machine from CD. The reason why booting from CD is important is because we're going to delete the C: drive partition where Windows is installed and re-format it. You can't do this if Windows booted from C:, because it can't delete the partition from which it is running."
So this is why I'm intent on getting the comp to boot from the CD. The person writing the article (Gina Trapani : Geek to Live) was lucky enough to have a computer which displayed a message as it was booting "to boot from CD press F12." Unfortunately, I have not noticed such a handy little message lol.
Also, in a past post of yours, you asked if the priority order (i.e. boot from CD first) remained after i supposedly set it. I would say NO because each time I have gone back into Setup using F2 as the system boots, it is always the same. I really don't know what I am doing wrong here as I mentioned before it does ask if I want to "save the changes" and exit and I have definitely said YES to that without any change.
Any other ideas or suggestions?
Thanx Raen.