Can't boot from CD

So my dumbshit wife installed spyware on my computer. Popup ads, resource depletion, funny sounds, the whole nine yards. Tried Windows Defender and AdAware. Didn't do shit.

Going to reinstall windows, but haha, funny story, my Dell Windows disk won't accept my key. The wonderful tech support (which won't help me that much, since my warranty is expired), told me I have to install from a boot, or at least that's what I surmise from what they tell me.

I borrowed a Windows XP Pro cd from my dad, but it's an older version and says I have to boot it from install also.

When I press F12 while booting, it doesn't give me an option to boot from CD drive. I tried changing the boot order in BIOS, but the BIOS says my CD drive is not installed. It's currently residing on my IDE primary (primary is the plug in the middle of the cable, right?)

HALP!

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It asks for the key when I try running the computer when already booted up into windows.

Dimension 3000

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Okay, crisis...somewhat averted. APPARENTLY I got mixed up between SECONDARY IDE slots and SLAVE IDE slots. I remember the drive trying to boot before, so I don't remember when or why I changed it in the BIOS.

So after that, the Dell dude was right, my windows disk didn't ask for product key when installing from a boot load.

And it doesn't really hurt to have a fresh install of Windows every now and then.

And then I lost the two screws I took out of the DVD drive, which sucked, but when I got into my little box with extra screws in it, I found my 1GB USB drive I lost almost a year ago when I moved!

Score. Kinda.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.