Hi im new to the forum and I wonder if anyone out there can help?

I have a G4 500 powerbook that unfortunatley had an accident causing the DVD/CD drive to cease working. It will not read.

I need to reinstall OS X but cannot as the powerbook will not startup from a external CD drive I have as it is USB. I have tried everything even trying to install OS X from a G4 desktop i have but I cannot work out how I can install a fresh OS X on the powerbook.

The Powerbook is all fully functional apart from the DVD/CD drive. Is it possible to install and boot from an exernal firwire cd drive? Is it possible to install through FireWire Target Disk Mode through another Mac? What about Net boot?

So many questions...

I hope someone out there has the knowledge and can get their teeth into this problem.

I look forward to replies.

Scott Goddard