Solved Boot to cd drive

Is there a way to boot to the CD drive without logging in. I have tried F2, esc, F10, F11, F12, and delete. It is an Asus. According to Asus F2 should do it but it does not.

If there is no way to do it, I guess I could do a clean install which brings up another question. I was reading the Clean Install tutorial and it said on a OEM installed OS I would use the generic product key listed in the tutorial and the in a later step enter the exact product key. There is no sticker with a product key on the laptop. Just a sticker with the words Windows 8 and the emblem. I'm a little confused on this.

You need to go into your BIOS Setup Menu and change the "Boot Order" sequence so the optical drive is before your other drives, then Save and Exit.

Then, during the boot process, with a bootable CD/DVD in the optical drive, watch closely for a prompt to appear in the lower left corner of the screen. When you see the prompt, press any key to boot to the optical drive. If you don't press any key, the option will time out and the boot process will move on to the next drive in the Boot Order - typically your normal boot drive.

Apparently when you have an external monitor connected to a laptop and try to enter BIOS the external monitor will not function. If I boot normally the external monitor will respond. The laptop display is toast. I have on coming to replace it. I thought while I'm waiting I would do a little maintenance which is why I wanted to boot to a CD. I can just wait till the new display arrives next week, install it and go from there. Hopefully what I'm thinking is correct and all will be well.

Yeah, that switch monitor option may not come into play until the HD is touched. Too bad. Keep us posted.

I found a way to boot to the CD drive. Remember this is an ASUS laptop.

Go to BIOS by pressing F2 at power up.
If this does not work you should be at the login screen. Here you need to select the power button in lower right of the screen and while holding down the SHIFT key select RESTART. Next select TURN OFF YOUR PC.
Now turn on your PC while holding down the F2 key. You should now be in the BIOS screen.
Now go to the security tab and scroll to Secure Boot Menu. Select it and disable secure boot. Press ecs or Esc on the keyboard.
Next select the Boot tab. Select CSM and enable. Then select Launch PXE OpROM policy and enable.
Press F10 to save and exit. Press and hold the ESC/esc key to launch boot menu. You now will have options for booting. Now the next time you boot in the future, by pressing the ESC/esc key you will have multiple boot options.

Hope this helps someone in the future.