Format C: Drive Without Internal Floppy And CD Drives

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starla iscariot

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I own a Toshiba Portege R100 running Windows XP. I would like to format the C: hard drive; however, the R100 model does not come with a CD drive or a floppy disk drive.

I own an external Iomega CD drive, but it is only connectable through USB. As formatting a C: drive using Windows XP requires a CD drive (or a floppy drive), this is not an option since the computer cannot boot from a USB-connected drive.

Is there an external CD drive I could purchase that would actually allow me to boot from it? Or, do you have any other suggestions?

Any help regarding this issue would be appreciated! Thank you!
 
is it too small for an internal drive? if not just spend 20-30$ on one, or does it not even come with extra IDE connectors?
 
Thanks for the advice.

I called Toshiba Technical Support and they said that the only way to boot directly from a CD drive on this computer would be to purchase an external Toshiba DVD/CD drive (PA3401U-1DVD) and hold down the "u" button as the computer is initializing.

They said that having a Toshiba-made drive is the only way to make the computer boot from a USB-connected CD drive, which I find hard to believe. However, holding down "u" with my Iomega external CD drive in place (with the Windows CD in it) didn't allow it to boot from the CD, so I guess Toshiba must be right on this one.

If the person I spoke with is to be trusted, I should just buy the Toshiba PA3401U-1DVD drive and be done with it, but I really wish I could get around spending over $100 on this.
 
starla iscariot said:
Thanks for the advice.

I called Toshiba Technical Support and they said that the only way to boot directly from a CD drive on this computer would be to purchase an external Toshiba DVD/CD drive (PA3401U-1DVD) and hold down the "u" button as the computer is initializing.

They said that having a Toshiba-made drive is the only way to make the computer boot from a USB-connected CD drive, which I find hard to believe. However, holding down "u" with my Iomega external CD drive in place (with the Windows CD in it) didn't allow it to boot from the CD, so I guess Toshiba must be right on this one.

If the person I spoke with is to be trusted, I should just buy the Toshiba PA3401U-1DVD drive and be done with it, but I really wish I could get around spending over $100 on this.

buy it, use it and take it back. then tell toshiba to make a more compatible notebook
 
try this first. network it. then share the other computer cd rom(put xp cd in). then hit setup. enter the key and pick fresh or expert install. have it copy the file on to the computer (that option is in there somewhere. make sure you use it or this won't work) now so you won't need to boot from cd. when it restart it will finish the install from the location that you copy those files to.
 
EricB said:
buy it, use it and take it back. then tell toshiba to make a more compatible notebook

Yes, I purchased it after I posted that. It seems like the easiest way and ya know, I'm lazy. Plus, it could prove useful in the future.
 
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