Just purchased a used Toshiba Terca 8000 ($50) from my Employer.

It has no floppy drive (Employee borrowed the laptop and left the drive in a hotel room).

No OS (It had Windows 95 but a failed attempt at Mandrake has it with a partial OS, it boots but no network, tons of insmod errors and no X)

The CD-ROM is faulty. It will sometimes boot a distro installer but it will get CD Read errors during the installation. I have heard of errors with El Torito Disc and some BIOS but I can't upgrade the BIOS without a floppy.

Will this Laptop boot from a USB Floppy? Could I remove the HD, and place an installer on a partition and install from it? Will a USB key work?

Thanks,
John

I've done an install from a usb cd-rom drive before.

usb would be the easiest route it all depends on whether the laptops bios supports usb booting.

Another option would be to see if you can get a replacement floppy drive.