hmm.. I'd say it's the BIOS that does not support CD-ROM booting.
one way to do it is to move the harddrive to another computer (which supports CD booting), install it there and then move the HDD back. not that easy, but I don't think 3.02 supports floppy boot, or?
also try flashing the BIOS for cd-rom support. I haven't seen a board that couldn't do CD-ROM booting in a long time. And wiht a min. spec of ASL being a P2-450 I know any board during that time frame will cd-rom boot
