IDE configuration to boot from CD drive first?

Are you sure that the IDE cables are plugging in correctly? An IDE cable usually has a red wire. That wire should be facing the molex power connector and not the other way. Also please post the entire system specs and give us more info about the symptoms you are facing. Does the system boot successfully? Are you able to see the BIOS screen?

OK, rules for connecting IDE devices and setting jumpers.

1. EVERY IDE port can support up to two devices sharing that port and cable. For this reason, BOTH devices on a port / cable need to be identified as either Master or Slave. There are some ribbon data cables that do not have the third connector in their middle, but using that still means that the one device connected to that cable MUST have its jumpers set to be the port Master.
2. Master and Slave designations are relevant ONLY to the one port / cable they share. A Master on one IDE port has NO relationship to a different port.
3. Any IDE port MUST have a Master device to function. IF there is a second device, then that must be the Slave.
4. Data ribbon cables come in 40- and 80-wire designs, even though the connectors only have 40 holes and pins (well, 39 because one is blanked off). The 80-wire ribbons are much better and required for later designs. Start counting across a ribbon. When you get to 20 wires, if you're only ¼ of the way across, you have an 80-wire cable.
5. Data ribbon cable connectors only plug into sockets one way. To enforce this there are bumps and slots on the outside of the connector bodies, and one hole is blocked / 1 pin is missing.
6. Jumpers on each device should be set according to the diagram on that specific device. There is no "universal" setting, so do not use the diagram from one unit for the settings on a different unit.
7. The "normal" data ribbon cable has three connectors on it. A BLUE one on one end goes to a mobo IDE port. The BLACK one on the other end goes to the MASTER device. The GREY one in the middle goes to the Slave device.
8. When connecting two devices on one port / cable, make SURE each device has its jumper set properly. One MUST be the Master, and you need to plug into it the BLACK cable connector on the END. The other MUST be the Slave (middle GREY connector).
9. There is one alternative jumper setting system. You can set BOTH devices on a cable / port to "Cable Select" or "CS", and then the one plugged into the END of the cable will be the Master, etc.
10. When using both an optical drive and an HDD on one cable / port, it is best to make the HDD be the Master device, and the optical unit as Slave. This is because SOME early optical drives were not able to perform properly as a Master in a two-device set, even though they are supposed to have this ability.
11. In earlier IDE systems, the only boot device in the system was automatically the Master device on the first IDE port of the mobo. In later systems, you could specify in BIOS Setup exactly which port and device was the boot device. For example, you could even set up a system where the first choice boot device is the optical drive that is the Slave on IDE Port #1, and the second choice is a HDD that is Master of IDE Port #0.