External cd-rom drive manual

I suggest you Google the Internet for external USB DVD ROM drive.

Try this method it may work.
If you can boot up with the external USB hard drive on your Acer, then use a working computer and copy the Windows installation CD onto the external hard disk then connect the USB externak hard disk to the USB port on your Acer and boot up using the external hard drive.

If the CD Drive is not working you can replace the drive or get an external USB CD drive and install XP from the external drive.

Jim

Try an external DVD drive that you can connect to your USB port. The drive you have in the laptop either has a dirty laser lens, which you can carefully clean with a "Q" and alcohol, or the laser itself may be going out. The drive can be replaced. You mentioned you have a cd-rom. If you can play movies (DVD) it is more likely a DVD drive instead of a cd-rom. CD-ROMs can only read data or music.

delete your driver for said cd rom. Then go online and find the updated driver and re-install. Usually solves things like missing cd roms and cameras, etc.

Only way I would know is to hook up and external cd drive to one of your USB ports and in the BIOS change the Boot sequence to use the USB Storage first so the it boots up off of the cd first and you can install what you need to off of the cd.

need to get bios setting for adjust External drive as first drive.

if you can get an external cd/dvd drive from a friend, then you could solve the problem.

other solutions would mean that you will reinstall windows again. This takes more time and has a few tricks to be done from a flash drive.

try reinstalling the drive

If you lost your cd-rom drive (device) then you can buy new from pc shop, but if you lost your drivers or software then you can download latest drivers from support site http://global.acer.com/support/download.htm