Presario 730US Restore Disc (Help)

Hi All,
Just bought a non working system which needed a new HDD. I picked up a
nice 40GB on eBay and installed it in the bay. I don't really know much
about the restore disc's or how to use one and because I didn't get one
with the system I was trying to boot an OEM copy from the CD drive. I
arranged the boot sequence in the BIOS to start with the CD Drive but I
keep getting a "No Operating System Found" error although the CD drive
seems to spin up OK. I tried partitioning and formatting via a W98 boot
disk in the A drive and succeeded at that but still get nowhere when it
comes to trying to access the CD drive.....
Do I have to use the restore disc?
Any suggestions?

Try cleaning the DVD/CDrom drive first. Denatured alcohol and a q-tip
gently on the optic eye. If this doesnt work? Swap the drive.. If
that doesnt work? Ghost an OS from a good 700 series drive and
install. These are borderline not worth spending money on and they
had big issues in the past.

Thanks for the tip.
Meant to get back here sooner but....
I think it was simply the boot option arrangement and I got it to go.
What type of other issues does this model laptop have a reputation for?
I pretty much have it tweaked and running OK right now but I also have
a very nice IBM T-30 I'm trying to repair. It's a 1.8GB and what I'd
rather be using. Not sure what the problem is yet but it's acting like
a mobo or a loose connection inside. Haven't had time to get inside it
for a lQQk yet.It will boot occasionally but crash hard and die then
won't even POST.... any ideas?