booting problem

[mikehende]

Another issue, got this Dell latitude L400 notebook which only comes with external devices, bought a new HDD and wish to install XP on it so I connected my external rom via the pcmcia slot and nothing happens, how can I boot from this cd?

[mikehende]

I went back into the BIOS under MAIN and I am not seeing the external cd-rom, is this where I would see if the system is recognizing the external rom? I am seeing

Diskette A: Not attached
Internal Hard drive: 20.0GB
Secondary IDE Device: None

After POST, I keep seeing

"Initializing MBA. Press ctrl+alt+B to configure"

When I do so, I get to a screen I don't understand, any ideas of both issues above please?