Old Dell will only boot Windows.

[Remeniz]

Mmmm.

How do you have the hard drive and optical drive connected up? Are then on separate IDE slots or are you using one IDE for both the HD and optical?

 

[foothead]

Mmmm.

How do you have the hard drive and optical drive connected up? Are then on separate IDE slots or are you using one IDE for both the HD and optical?

The HDD is SATA, disk drives are IDE.

 

[iPwn]

Are the drives at least being recognized in the BIOS?

 

[foothead]

Are the drives at least being recognized in the BIOS?

Yes.

 

[Indigo]

If the system isn't booting to a CD that you burned, and it tests fine in another machine, it's either A) compatibility, B) the drive is dead, C) the interface on the motherboard is dead.