I'm trying to reinstall an OS (used to be Windows XP) on my Toshiba Portege 3480CT notebook. I don't have any port-extender, nor a floppy/CD drive. I need to know the Part-Number of such a port-extender in order to buy one! I tried unsuccessfully to boot from network using another Toshiba port-extender (the BIOS claims to know to boot from network!) Thanks in advance for any reply! Dumitru MIHAI

Does the laptop have a USB port? Maybe you can use an external USB CD-ROM drive and have the BIOS boot to it. (?)

Not likely....but it was a nice thought. The last time a customer brought a Portege in for repair they needed the OS reinstalled. The Portege's don't come with a CD-ROM/DVD and I was told by toshiba tech support that the only USB CD that will work is a specific model worth around $600.00 Canadian that they were willing to sell the customer. We have a USB backpack burner at work. I tried it regardless of what the toshiba tech guy said (heck, all they know is what their database tells them....they're not "real" techs) all to no avail. In the end after a little coercion on my part and due to the fact the unit was still under warranty toshiba let us ship it to them and they reinstalled the OS.

Thanks a lot for your replies! The laptop has an USB port, I do have an external USB CD-ROM drive, but ... no way to boot from! I don't intend to pay $600.00 for a CD-ROM drive. I am still trying to find a "port-extender" with Network-Adapter on it, in order to try to boot from a DHCP/BOOTP Server. As I said, the BIOS has an option to boot from the network. Another try would be to get the old XP running... I damaged it by editing the registry in order to clean some backdoor trojans. I am still able to get the login window but without loading anything (does not load the desktop). I am able to get the Task-Manager running (from Ctrl-Alt-Del window), I can get the popup "Create New Task" (by New Task) and so I can browse the disk, go to c:\windows\system\32\cmd.exe, at the message "Windows cannot open this file... What do you want to do?" I answer "Select the program from a list", I browse again and select "c:\windows\system\32\cmd.exe" and I get a Command Prompt (terminal) running. Here I can run regedit... Any help in this ideea would be very appreciated! Thanks in advance!

I have solved it. Using the Terminal (Command Prompt) as described above, I managed to access an USB-CDROM XP-media, I started \i386\winnt32.exe and I have reinstalled the OS. Still unsolved the boot-start from network or from another device. Thanks! Dumitru MIHAI