ulea on windows xp needs f8 but my laptop wont do one

[dvdgremlin]

my IBM THINKPAD doesn't have ps port for conventional keyboard and usb and laptop keyboard dont work to produce f8 for ulea xp agreement on setup ....

so, my current situation is as follows...

windows partition destroyed but hdd aok... original contents ok on usb hdd in caddy in rescue and recovery ibm format.

ibm r&r wont reinstall as usb hdd isn't recognised until windows is installed

mbr was corrupted by ubuntu install (attempted setting up dual boot xp/ubuntu) but I have fixed it

so at the moment I can only boot in ubuntu and have no windows system on my C: drive.

cant do an unattended setup as dont have a cd with it on... I dont trust downloading one off torrent....

cant do a windows xp install off cd as cant do an f8 for eula

any suggestions ?

its involved as to how I got to this situation but it would probably confuse things to go into the history of events....

[Ponch]

Have you checked the Bios to enable "Legacy USB" or something like that so you can use a USB keyboard right after POST ?

[dvdgremlin]

oh already done that but is it legacy anyway ? wasn't sure but set it anyway.

thanks