boot from USB HDD, no MOBO usb boot support
 

I am just starting out in linux and want to install a distro to an external HDD. I'm thinking of using Fedora but any distro will do (to get into and learn linux with)

Live CD's won't work (like Knoppix), as my laptop CD-ROM is dying and can't read boot cd's

My MOBO does not support USB booting

I currently am running Windows XP on my laptop HDD and don't want to format it or change the MBR with LILO/GRUB boot loaders.

Basically what i'm looking for is a boot loader like LoadLIN which i can run from DOS/Windows which i can then use to mount my USB HDD and load the kernel/OS from there. I might be able to create a LILO/GRUB Boot CD (i don't know how to do so from windows) that would work in my CD-Drive... but it acts funny and doesn't always read a CD correctly so i prefer the other method if possible.

Also i have no idea how to install a linux distro to my external HDD.

Any ideas?