Why Can't I Boot Off an External Floppy Drive?

[Carbo]

Running a Dell Dimension 4600, XP Pro SP2. Latest BIOS version. All I want to do is boot off of an external USB floppy drive, but I'm having a heck of a time doing so. The frustrating part is the few folks I have spoken to about this are divided right down the middle. Some say yes, while others tell me it cannot be done. Even Dell support gives me varying answers. I would prefer not to install an internal drive for the rare times I need one.
Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong, if anything, and how to get the PC to boot off the external drive? Many thanks!

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

Alot of computers wont support booting from USB devices

 

[xenosoul]

^^^What he said.. I would go into the cmos and check to see if usb is in the boot priority list. If its not then I would suggest installing an internal disk drive.