USB Boot option on VGN-FE series...? DVD-rom is borked

[cebula123]

Hello,

Does anyone know if I can get my sony vaio VGN-FE39VP to boot from a USB disk?
I created my USB disk so that it will be just like the Windows XP installation CD using this tutorial:
http://www.jcmiras.net/surge/p96.htm

I want to reinstall windows, but I cant through the DVD-rom because it's malfunctioning, it shows all CDs/DVDs as blank.

In the bios there doesnt seem to be any option to boot from USB. Ive read that I could upgrade my bios but couldn't find any bios files on the sony support site for my model.

My current bios is Phoenix netbios 4.0 Release 6.1

I'd appreciate it if anyone could help me on this, because I don't feel like buying a new dvd-rom.

Thanks.

[cebula123]

Did I mention that sony vaio notebooks are awesome pieces of crap?

[Blencogo]

Sorry, Vaios released with XP can only be booted from hard drive, internal DVD drive and Sony USB Floppy drive (1.44MB max)

I don't know any way to boot from anything else.

You can explore installing the system on the hard drive in another PC, recovering the system from the hard drive recovery partition or perhaps a network solution but I think replacing the DVD-ROM is the easiest - you can but then for £30 and it is only held in by two screws.