Have ibm dva-2810 hd want to connect to laptop via an external box. Is there such a thing?

You wouldn't be able to use it as a primary drive in a laptop, you could in a desktop, but you would require and IDE to SATA adapter. But even then, I still wouldn't bother because the drive would be too slow.

You would be able to use it as external storage via the means of an IDE to USB cable. It still wouldn't be as quick at accessing data as today's modern external storage devices, so again that's why I wouldn't bother. But you could if you really wanted to.

Connecting an External Monitor or Data Projector
You can switch to an external monitor or data projector by two methods. 1. Connect the external monitor to the laptop's video port, power up the external monitor first and the laptop. The video information will automatically switch to the external monitor. 2. If you power up the laptop first then you can switch the video output to the external monitor by pressing the Fn key and one of the Function keys, depending upon your make and model laptop. You can also toggle between the external monitor or both LCD screen plus the external monitor or back to LCD screen only by pressing the Fn key plus one of the function key a few times. Here is a list of key combinations for some of the laptops :- IBM ThinkPad = Fn + F7 HP and Compaq = Fn + F4 Toshiba = Fn + F5 Dell = Fn + F8

Most probably it will be enough to press Fn + F5 to change the display output. Pressing this combination sequentially toggles between 3 settings usually:
Internal LCD
External output
LCD and external simultaneously.

The external-only option is the best, as it will give you an option to set a screen resolution suitable/optimum for your TV, as oposed to the resolution of your internal LCD display, which is optimum for your display, but doesn't use the full capabilities of your TV.

Good luck, and please come back with a testimonial/rating if helped.

You must select external input for this to work, it will NOT display via a channel, it is AV, you must select that external input.

Go to control panel / sounds / audio, and see if the boxes have greyed out writing, if so then the driver needs reloading, if they are all good check all settings.

Meant to ask if volume control icon is showing in the right lower task bar.

The laptop has a blue 15 pin D-sub video port, connect a video cable from this port to the 15 pin D-sub on the HDTV.
Power up the TV first and then power up the laptop, the video signal will automatically switch to the external video output.
You can toggle between the LCD and TV or both on together by pressing the blue Fn key + the F7 function key several times.

If you have a floppy drive on it you are in luck.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310994#XSLTH3135121122120121120120

That would be the most straightforward way to do it.

If not.

Are you able to boot off the external CD?

If so there is another way using the PE , preinstallatoin enviroment.

If not , you said you formatted it externally , which I assume means you have either a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE adapter or a USB to IDE adapter and another PC to format it with.

If you can hook the drive to another PC , you can do the install there , change some hardware settings , run the SYSPREP utility and swap the drive back into the laptop.

Check the DVD unit specs.
DVD 9 (dual layer DVD) is not for any drive only some are allowing to process.
You can try any external DVD drive (Multi standard ) connected via USB.

Recovery discs are wonderful things aren't they? Most people lose or damage their disc and don't have it when it's needed. I would recommend making a copy or disc image on the hard drive of the recovery disc just in case. Glad I could help, if you need anything else just let me know.

In principle the XBOX 360 is designed in a way that anything connected to it via USB is read only. So you can use the HD, but you can?t download anything to it.