Windows 7 - cannot boot off of anything except HDD

I don't even remember the reason I wanted to do a clean install initially, it doesn't even matter at this point, just want things working. I have been battling this for about 1 week now

Toshiba Satellite laptop (m45-s265) opensuse 11.2 ( I will be diving into mint once I figure this out, and payday arrives !)(linux forums didn't really help)

Boot from CD- I tried to do a clean install with my cd, that has worked many times, and yes I have since tested and boot anouther cpu off of it first try. I can take the Toshiba way, hit F10 and use the menu to have it boot from CD, Grub loads. I go into the BIOS menu, tell it from there to boot from CD, GRUB (my bootloader). it always goes to Grub. Can't boot off of CD, USB, or even floppy.

CD -ROM - is working fine. I tested it a few times. I can even open the folder and explore the contents of the opensuse CD. I can even hear it spinning up upon startup. the disk itself will boot anouther computer so I know that its not faulty either

BIOS - I have gone so far as to attempt to boot from flash drive, and my BIOS does have the FDD option to boot from.

thanks in advance

Download an update for your bios and try to flash it. You may not be able to, if thats the case, go into your Bios and reset all values to stock.

I have tried both, of those :-(, there is no BIOS update for this computer available, and already tried to reset defaults :-(. I'm thinking try to disable the bootloader??? shot in the dark i know ....

I just wanna do a clean install, should I try to disable the boot loader?

This will probably not help because the BIOS should not even point there. If you set the CD ahead of the HDD in the BIOS boot sequence, then it should grab the CD (if it is spinning in the tray).

Does your machine have a pop-up Boot from list that you can access with an F-Key during startup... it will be on your main screen right when the BIOS starts?

This is what you need... leave your boot sequence in the BIOS itself set to HDD first then select the alternate device from the BBS menu... If you alter your boot sequence it may loop, bringing you constantly back to boot from the wrong place.

If you are not seeing this list... Do you have "Quick Boot" (or similar) enabled in your BIOS... Some also have settings to disable the BBS list...