Originally Posted by PC eye

Once you boot to the dos prompt after selecting the "with cd rom support" option change to the E:\ root and type dir/w followed by pressing the enter key. That will show all files at the root of the cd itself. Also look over the disk itself for any scratches or finger marks from handling.

Being that old of a laptop the optical drive itself could also be the problem. Simply tossing in another old software disk to see if any installer will at least show signs of starting up manually will show if the drive is still reading disks.