Can you access the CD in Windows to determine your player is actually working? If you burned the CD with it, it should be intact, but if you used another computer like in a true virus case it would be harder to tell. Anyway, if you can see the contents of the CD with the computer you're playing with, the drive should be OK.
What MrRipley said about pressing a key during startup for choosing the boot device is correct. It may be F12, I've also seen F8, Esc, maybe F11 too. You might see a small message on the bottom of your start screen giving you a hint.
Also, the obvious: Although the optical drive is set as the primary boot device, you might still have to "press any button to boot from CD". Depending on your bios settings the option may pass by quite quickly. Not all bioses allow you to change the time for clicking, so you'll have to keep a keen eye on the startup procedure. Some CD's come coded with the button pressed, some others have a boot device selector of their own with a little longhttp://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/board,18.0.htmler (~15 sec) choosing time. Mostly you have to choose quite soon anyway.
