I just bought a new PC. It's pentium 3, blah blah blah. I haven't got many details, sorry. It has a cd and a dvd drive, but it can't boot from either. I have USB keys and stuff, but my computer needs all these non-existant drivers to use it. I tried upgrading my bios, but I can't figure out where the upgrades are. Please help! I don't want to be stuck running windows 98 !

Did you check that CD ROM booting isn't disabled in the BIOS?
Also make sure it is first in the boot order.

To upgrade your BIOS goto your motherboards manufacturers web site and follow the instructions for your BIOS. Usually dload a small file, put it on floppy then boot from the floppy and follow instructs.

If it is a PIII it will no doubt boot from CDROM. You need to select your CD Drive as a boot device in your BIOS and put it first in the boot order. It will probably have to be a master on one of the IDE channels.

And of course the CD has to be a bootable CDROM. If the CD is bootable then it will boot off it.

PIII isn't new by the way it's about 5 years old or so.