TP i1200 install

[mark barnes <mbarnes@pacifier.com>]

I'm experiencing some problems installing 2.2r3 on my new thinkpad. It
has a CDROM, no floppy disk drive (but USB floppy is available), and
windows ME installed.  The debian CDs (from LinuxCentral) won't boot in
this CDROM, but they will boot on my other machines.  I tested the
thinkpad's Cd player with another bootable CD (Windows NT) and it was
able to boot.  I've tried everyway I can think of to boot from the CDs,
but no luck.  So, how do I go about installing on this thinkpad?

I tried to run boot.bat from within windows ME, but was informed via the
friendly MS help system that it needs DOS real mode to run, and that DOS
real mode isn't available within Windows ME.  Boot.bat starts loadlin. 
Is there a way to run loadlin from within windows?  Is this the best way
to go about this?

I can buy the USB floppy disk drive for this thinkpad (about $100 I
think), and the documentation says the thinkpad will boot from it.  Does
anyone know if the USB floppy will work under Linux?

I guess I can install onto the laptop's hard drive by removing it and
using a desktop and a special cable?  Does anyone have any experience
doing this?  Where does one acquire this cable?

Does anyone have any suggestions concerning the best way to install onto
this machine.

Thanks

Mark