HP ZE1230 boots to hdd but won't boot CD!

Hi. I just gave my laptop to my little sister who wants to install Windows XP on it. I currently have Fedora Core 4 on the laptop which works fine, she needs windows for the programs that run on her school computers (I already tried them with wine, they won't work.)

Anyway. This isn't a linux/windows bashfest. This is a serious issue. I just recently installed FC4 not more than about 2 months ago. The CD that we're trying to install from is the CD that came with the system so it's not a burned copy, it's the disc that HP Supplied with the laptop when I bought it a million years ago. The screen comes up with PRESS ANY KEY TO BOOT FROM CD and of course, we press any key and the prompt goes away. Nothing happens. You hear the disc being accessed for a second or so, then it stops but the disc is still spinning. It never boots. We even left the computer at that state for about 2 hours and still no boot.

We also tried a copy that was burned by myself and that disc won't boot. I'm in the process of downloading the FC4 dvd again to see if that will boot up, but in the meantime I'd like to see if anyone else has any suggestions? We're running off AC power, tried resetting the bios, tried re-assigning boot order, I can play a CD and watch DVD movies on the laptop just fine with no problems (We watched a couple movies to make sure the drive wasn't dead) and no issues. Like I said, I also listened to some music CD's and even transfered some mp3's from a burned CD onto the hard drive. The drive is a burner, so I also tried burning some discs. I burned about 12 of them with no problems, only stopping because I ran out of blank and rw discs. (CDRW drive with DVD reader.)

Does anyone have any ideas at all? Suggestions?