Laptop won't see boot cd

Recently Formatted A TANGENT LAPTOP with FDISK. Put in the WIN 98 FLOPPY DISK and WIN 98 CD - Like 100s OF Times B4. I usually install 98 FIRST, then upgrade to XP. BUT THIS TIME THE COMPUTER IS NOT SEEING THE CD. I TRIED DIFFERENT CDs, EVEN DIFFERENT ROM DRIVES. NOTHING WORKS. I'M WONDERING IF THIS IS BECAUSE IT'S A CD/DVD ROM DRIVE. THE LIGHT COMES ON, THE DRIVERS GET INSTALLED, BUT I'M TOLD THAT DRIVE E ISN'T READY - OR NO OS. ANY SUGGESTIONS ON HOW I CAN GET AN OS ON THIS WITH FLOPPIES? TRIED FLASH DRIVE ALSO, BUT THE BIOS DOESN'T HAVE THE CAPACITY TO SEE IT. THANKS FOR ANY SUGGESTIONS. ALOHA!

Shouting (using all caps) is impolite. FDISK is not a format utility. It is a partitioning tool. A FORMAT is a separate operation. Try using an external USB CDROM

Sorry about that. Wasn't shouting - just being lazy about using he shift key. Lol. Thanks for your suggestion. It crossed my mind. So i guess I'll have to go buy one. Fdisk is the floppy utility i often use to erase the hard drive. Normally I'm able to format with the cdrom after fdisk. This is the first time using a boot cd wasn't an option. I really do appreciate your help. Aloha and mahalo.