How to install Windows from an external cd-romd

since my previous thread was pretty much ignored - i dare someone again:
To all,
I am not able to get Boot Camp to load vista from the external CD-ROM since the internal one is totaly disconnected. It does nothing. It spins the CD when it restarts then continues on to loading the login screen.
Bare with me - this is the fun part -
I got a 24" white iMac. CD-ROM was stuck and refused to take in new CD's. Took it to Apple, they replaced it. I bring it back home 2 days later and the screen is dented. They fix that in 4 days. Now I am finally able to start installing Vista.
Put the CD in - nothing happens - it kicks it out!!!! Well - its brand new - its even a different brand than what was in there before.
I take it back to apple, i give the lady all the ** in the world because this is not supposed to happen, etc.
They decide to give me a new iMac. While I am waiting, the manager approaches me and give me the 13 cents which were found in the cd-rom drive (thanks to my kids)
So I appologize - totaly ignored her wanting $450 to replace it, so I went and bought a Sony external DVD reader, burner.
Problem --
Boot Camp, Front Row + the DVD player software won't work off the external drive.
I took the mac appart - disconnected the dvd-drive from the motherboard thinking that if its not there, then boot camp will attempt to run off the external drive.
Put it back together - and rebooted - everything came up fine until using front row or the dvd player.
Boot Camp still won't read the external drive - no errors nothing - it attempts then quits and moves to the login screen.
Guys - I need help - i make my living off Windows so not having access to it - its killing me.
Please do not recommend parallels or anything else like it.
I am willing to try anything at this point. Before I go and spend $450 i will rather buy a new machine.
HELP!!! Anyone Please!!!!

OK, I reread your original post and you don't say if the Sony drive shows up in Finder if you insert a disc, it should.
That said, the point I think you're missing is that when BootCamp Assistant (BA) asks you to insert the Windows disc, the BA application does not read it. Instead BA tells OS X to reboot off the cdrom drive. Thus it's the bootstrap loader that has to know how to read off the specified device. Bootstrap loaders reside in firmware and are very limited programs. They generally only know how to detect selected key presses and how to read boot sectors of certain devices and pass execution to the loaded code. Reading from a USB connected optical device is not within the scope of a bootstrap loader.

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