[greggles]

Hello, I have a Toshiba notebook whose cd rom does not work. I bought external dvd writer and would like to reformat using recovery disc but computer does not recognize this when restarting.

No way in BIOS it seems to add this. Can I copy recovery discs to HD and boot from there? Any advice on how to do this would be appreciated.

Thanks,Greg

 

[TriggerFinger]

hi Greg,

best if you replace the internal CD drive. on the other hand if you really want to pursue this path of a USB external drive, make sure your BIOS supports booting from USB (which NOT ALL laptops are capable of).

try this method:
http://www.syschat.com/install-windows-xp-without-floppy-cd-463.html