New system does not boot from bootable cd

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

I have finally got all my bits together so that I can start building a
new computer. After installing the hardware I find that I am unable to
boot from XP cd.
Have set the cd rom to be the the 1st boot drive but all I get is the
'booting from cd' message followed by a blank screen with flashing
cursor in the top left hand corner.
I have an Abit IS7 board with two hard drives on IDE1 and a Pioneer
107 DVD rewriter(from which I am trying to boot) as master on IDE2.
I know that the XP cd is ok as my old computer can boot from it with
no troubles so could the problem be that you cannot boot from a
secondary drive or maybe I have to do something to the dvd rewriter to
make it bootable?
and I thought I knew how to install XP!