I have a Toshiba Portege 3500 and I need to re-install windows, however I do not have a floppy or CD-ROM drive to the laptop. I do have an external USB CD-RW drive. I looked into the BIOS of the laptop and changed it where it would boot from the CD-ROM drive, but it doesn't. I'm assuming that it will only work if you have a PCMCIA CD-ROM drive. Is there anyway or any manipulations that you can do to my system to make it boot from a USB device. I've been looking around and have been seeing a program called DUSE, but I don't believe that is made for WinXP.

Hi Mark, USB Boot devices do work with Toshiba laptops. I'd try updating your BIOS first. If that doesn't work, please make sure that your Windows CD is bootable. If you are using the CD's provided with the laptop, then double check to see if your should boot to a floppy first (sometimes the case). Let us know the outcome. Phyto

I have the latest BIOS update for my laptop and the recovery CD that came with the laptop is a bootable CD, but it does not boot from my laptop with the USB drive. Do you think I should try another BIOS. Can you retrogress in BIOS version or is that a no, no?

A little off topic but worth sharing I feel. Here is a very useful device for owners of laptops without floppy drives:- http://www.weast.co.uk/acatalog/index.html (Scroll down to 3rd item "ODH Floppy Terminator".) This "looks" like a floppy drive to any machine which supports booting from USB floppy. Has a small switch to change between regular flash drive and floppy mode. Only one of it's kind I know of and hardly used a real floppy drive since !