"Catch 22" problem CD-ROM drive and driver

I have a Dell Latitude C600 notebook (built circa 2001, I think) Originally it had Windows 2000 OS, but I decided to wipe the hard drive for a number of reasons, thinking to then replace Win2000 with WinXP. Unfortunately, this model does not offer the luxury of both floppy AND a CD-ROM drive - it has a single dock into which you can choose to put EITHER a floppy drive module OR a CD-ROM drive module, but not both simultaneously. (Incidentally, the BIOS is presently set to seek boot sequence first from the floppy, then the CD-ROM, then the hard drive.)
Here's my "Catch-22" dilemma. Installing the CD-ROM module and the WinXP CD is useless, since the CD-ROM drive has no driver and therefore isn't recognized. So the CD-ROM drive module is then swapped out with the floppy drive module, a standard WIN98 boot disk iinserted, which among other things, supplies the generic "Oak" CD-ROM drivers. But it cannot load the CD-ROM driver from the floppy because now there is no CD-ROM drive for it to recognize, and it aborts the driver installation. The notebook has a USB port, but I don't know if that can be used to load the driver since I've never attempted it, and am not sure exactly how to go about it even if it would work.
Does anyone know how I can load the CD-ROM driver given this scenario? Or suggest some other way to get the computer to recognize the drive? (Yes, I have already thought about throwing it in the river, but now my curiosity insists on trying to get a good technical solution! ) ) Help, please!

 

There's this thing called the internet - wait, we're on it right now. You can use it, and a site called www.google.com to search for and download drivers. Or you can just use the USB port you mentioned.

 

You may be able to snag the driver off a usb flash card rather than a floppy. I'm not sure as I've never done it, but maybe someone with a little more experience who isn't as big of a jerk as lithus can suggest something.

 

Your other option could be a usb floppy drive, available for about $30

 

Sorry, let me answer this correctly:

WinXP CDROM drives have been instantly recognized for a while now as generics, but if you say you have drivers, load them in to the HDD with the floppy, then load the CD drive and install the drivers from the HDD.

However, what it sound like is that you have no OS. If the CD drive worked in Win2k, load that up, and do an upgrade install to XP which should (hopefully) allow you to keep your data, including your driver on the HDD.

 

Aha! Yes, that could be it. Neat idea, I'll give it a try. Thanks much!