BleepingComputer.com: Service Pack Issue

I'm a technician at a small college. A student brought her laptop up with a broken dvd drive in it. The computer will not start up because of a failed Vista service pack install. I kno this is fixable by performing a windows system restore, however, the dvd drive in the laptop won't work, and I can't get it to boot to a Vista disc through an external USB dvd drive. Is it possible to run a system restore from an external hard drive? Or is there another option I can try?

In order to boot from a USB device the BIOS of that laptop has to have that option, and you need to change the boot order so that the USB drive is the first device in the boot order. Some BIOS don't offer this option, you will have to check it and see. You can boot from an external hdd or flash drive using this method, but as I understand it you can't boot from and external optical drive.

Does this computer boot at all?

Can you get to the advanced boot options? Press and hold F8 while it is booting.

Sorry for the late reply, but I've been away. After spending a good deal of time on the issue, we found that the motherboard was beginning to fail.