XP instal help on Toshiba notebook

hey everyone,
I have a Toshiba Portege laptop with windows vista enterprise on it. it was designed for xp but had vista on it when i got it. the problem is that vista is now past its activation period i guess. i do not want to buy a new cd key for vista because it makes my computer run slow anyways, i want to install xp that i have on it. the laptop itself does not have a cd or dvd drive. i have an external sony drx-720ul drive but i cant install because i cannot get the computer to boot from disk or even get into its bios.. and i can only acces the internet and nothing else.. cant go to mycomputer and get the setup to run.. any ideas? ask any other questions that you might have.

thanks alot,
val

 

ok, i figured out a way to get the cd to boot while the comp is on but it doesnt let me install xp because the vista copy on it is obviously newer. what can i do to let it install?

 

Boot to the XP disc and use the option to format the hard drive. It will format the drive the regardless of which version of Windows is on it but you will lose any data you have on it, so back anything up first; burn it to CD/DVD or use a USB thumb drive or external drive, then format and install Windows XP. There's no other way to get XP on the PC unless you format.