CD boot for Dell Latitude C400

Hi,

I just got a old Dell Latitude C400, with which I have a couple of problems:

1) I am not the administrator, so I have to find the way to access the adm privileges for installing some programs (ok, not a big deal, there are CD for booting… but see my second problem)

2) the computer has no CD/floppy drive. I connected an external CD drive, via USB. Unfortunatelly that is NOT OK for having the option of booting from the CD.

What can I do? especially for probl #2?
If I could find a way of booting reading the flash drive I would have no problems, but this seems not to be possible (is it? moreover I am not the administrator).

How can I get to the bios during the booting for trying doing something?

Thanks