That's what I been doin'

so you're saying that your cd and dvd drives are both dead at bootup?? have you verefied in the BIOS that you are set to boot from one of those drives as first priority at boot up, and is it recognized as a boot drive?

Yes, and they are. Both are set up to boot as first priority. At boot up with the disk in, it will stop at boot from cd for a min or two, and then bootup as usual.

Grampa, my drives are:
Mitsumi cr-48x5te
Liteon dvd-rom ltd163d