Ok, I built a new Linux box to put slackware on. For some odd reason it would rarely boot from the slackware install CD. It did a few times, but most of the time it would hang or given some error when it said "booting from ATAPI CD-ROM" The mobo is modern, so no bios updates were necessary to boot from CD. What was odd is a few times I got it to boot but at least 19 out of 20 times it wouldn't. The CD-ROM is something like a 40X (I think) or above and I am confident there is nothing wrong with it. What I tried then was to use my DVD-ROM from my windows box, and ta-da, it could boot from CD every time. What could of been the problem? The CD-ROM was possibly too slow? Or maybe defective? I dont think it's defective because one of the few times I got it to boot off of CD, it installed all of slackware fine. Oh, and it wasn't the CD I burned slackware on because I tried about 3 different CDs. It just seemed odd to me.

Was it an older creative labs cdrom?

I had a similar problem several years ago with one of those. The problem was the cdrom drive itself. I returned the cdrom and bought a different brand and everything worked fine.

No it is a Matshita CD-ROM.

I did a google for Matshita and found this page of windows drivers, note the title "Panasonic (Matsushita Matshita) CDROM Drivers" and then look at this page at TLDP, specificly note 1. These drives may be sold under the names Creative Labs, Panasonic, Matsushita, or Kotobuki.
Easy solution is to get a cdrom that conforms to the ATAPI standard.

Well it works now because I'm using a DVD-ROM. Want to hear something weird? That same CD-ROM drive booted from CD just fine when I used it on my old Linux box.

Might just be a faulty unit.