Laptop with no internal cd..please help

[markiezzi]

Hello,

I have a customers toshiba protege 3490CT laptop. It has no built in cd drive. I hooked up my external USB DVD Burner/CDRW and was able to install windows XP on it and replace windows 2000 pro he had. My problem is now windows xp is running very slow and I can not downgrade and reinstall windows 2000 pro again without rebooting and booting off a cd cd drive. How can I make this laptop boot from a USB device I see nothing in the bios about booting from USB. Is there a way around this to go back down to windows 2000 Pro? Any help or ideas would be great.

Thanks

Mark

 

[Nathan H]

Have you tried removing the HDD
Connecting it to your System & Installing it form There?

If that works its just a case of putting back the HDD and updating his drivers.

Can't see why this would not work.

 

[mh348]

Check Under Boot Sequence in the Bios, there might be an option to boot from USB.

Yesterday I had to replace a MB on a clients POS system, which didn't have a CD-rom, I Connected my external DVD-RW and there was an option to boot from USB-CD. I was then able to do a repair installation, install drivers etc.

 

[geekhelp4u]

Also remember that some of the computers I have worked on, although able to boot to usb, must have the usb drive attached to a specific port!

 

[vr6rafal]

So you were able to boot off CD to install Windows XP but now can't boot?
Is your Windows 2000 CD bootable, check if it boots from other computer!!

Try using the USB port that's the closest to the power plug!!

I had a portege tablet once and that worked like a charm!!!

 

[markiezzi]

Ok. I have the hard drive out of the laptop. It is now hooked up to my desktop using a USB to IDE/SATA cable. The desktop recognizes the drive. Now how do I install windows onto this drive through a USB Port? I tired to run the windows install CD but it does not show me any drives hooked up through USB only my internal IDE drives. I see no option anywhere to install windows onto a USB device drive. I am trying to overwrite the version on XP that is on the hard drive currently and replace it with Windows 2000 Pro. Any ideas? I remember somewhere there was a program that installed windows xp onto a USB thumb drive but not sure if this will help me.

Thanks
Mark

 

[Crgky127]

I read somewhere in regard to another protege that you need to use a certain external cd drive, which are expensive and the only person I have known to have it was an official toshiba service provider.

Do you have access to another laptop?