Cannot boot from CD or external USB

[Thomas Blasejewicz]

Good evening
So far nothing worked. I will summarize what I did so far
(2014/08/21 19:50), compdoc wrote:
>> As far as I remember the order:
>> 1)    CD drive
>> 2)    external USB drive
>> 3)    internal HDD
>> 4)    LAN (?)
>> But I can move ONLY up and down through that list. The enter key does
>> not work.
>
Sorry, my mistake. #2 in the above list apparently refers to a floppy 
and not a USB drive; otherwise the BIOS setup looks OK to me.
so, I guess, it would not help to make a bootable USB flash drive, 
wouldn't it?

* cannot change the order, but #1 always comes first.
* the CD drive is NOT broken; its reads the live CD as well as audio CDs 
just fine
* regardless of whether I start the computer with the CD inserted or put 
it in later ->
the computer ALWAYS boots from the HDD. AND
it ALWAYS gives me the message about the "Software Package detected" 
TWICE (!)
* today I was able to use the enter keys for some of items in the setup 
menu; not all though
once Ubuntu is running, the enter keys works fine
* I therefore assume there is nothing wrong with the hardware

* there is this "SBM" thing, offering to copy an image onto a floppy and 
initiate boot from that floppy.
yet, since ALL versions so far, including the one currently running, 
have been installed via CD, I would like to think, I do not need that.
anyway, a floppy inserted into the internal drive is not recognized.

* Is there no "run" command or something, where you type "run xxx" into 
a terminal and the installation starts?
- or double click somewhere on an "exe" file?
- there is a file called "autorun", but that is only a very short text 
file that does not seem to run anything
* since there are all those folders "install", "iso", "ubuntu" etc. on 
the CD, I would like to think that theree is somewhere something that 
can be executed.
I tried a few things, but since I do not speak "alien", none of the 
stuff I typed did any good.

* The live CDs - I tried a few of them - ALL work just fine when 
inserted into the Windows machine on my desk.
It is therefore probably safe to assume, that those are OK too.

Conclusion:
-> the hardware seems to OK
-> the live CD seems to be OK
Task: find a way to "run" the program and install the "damn thing" 
(14.04) .
Is there such a way to get into those programs, or do I have to be 
satisfied with 12.04 for eternity (in the not so distant future the 
community will tell me, support has ended and I should update my system 
...)?

Thank you.
Thomas