I have a Toshiba M200 (PPM20U-004 j04) with the PA3352U-1CD2 Rev. 344 CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive - which will not boot from the USB drive.

I don't think it is the drive that is the restriction. I talked to Toshiba and they specifically told me that, with the M200, I need a "PC Card" drive (for ex: PA 3246U-1DVD) in order to boot. I now have both and can boot from the PC-Card drive.

It appears that the BIOS on the M200 does not support USB boot.

Odd. I was under the impression that the only difference between the M200 and M205 was the configuration and the optical drive being included.

I did see that Toshiba has released a BIOS update (1.6). I haven't installed it - I tend to not fix things that aren't broken. I'm wondering though if you might gain bootability with a BIOS update. FWIW, I'm running BIOS version 1.2.

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I just checked and I have BIOS ver 1.1.

I also tend not to fix things that aren't broken - but may try a BIOS upgrade.
If there is a feature that I can use it will be worth the effort.

Please let us know how it works out. I'm sure there are others wrestling with the same problem.

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Absolutely would love to know if the issue is a BIOS one!

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I successfully upgraded the BIOS to 1.6 - and still cannot boot from the USB drive.

If I connect the PC-Card drive I can boot with no problems.

I have the same CD unit as you and I'm able to boot with the older 1.2 BIOS. I'm stumped at this point as to why I can and you cannot. My part number is different though: PPM20U-07UGSK.

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My M205 came with the same unti: PA3352U-1CD2 Rev. 344 CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. Mine is definitely bootable.

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I cannot boot from the USB drive.
When I called Toshiba - and gave them the model and serial numbers they said that I would need the "PC-Card" drive in order to boot.

It would seem that there is in fact a hardware difference between the M205 and the M200 (other than the 60GB and 40GB drives).

The m200 and m205 is the same hardware, but the issue here is actually the hardware of the DVD drive itself. This is actually a big problem with the Toshiba drives. About half of users report the ability to boot from them, and the other half can't. There's a really big thread over at the Toshiba forums at pocketpcbuzz.com, I'd provide a link but they seem to be down at the moment. Basically the general consensus at the moment is that something changed in the manufacturering process of the DVD drives that has now rendered them unbootable. While the model number is the same, the manufacturer date is different. It seems the newer ones are the ones having the trouble. There have been a few people who have been successful exchanging drives with Toshiba, but others have gotten stuck because the low level techs seem to be very prone to just saying that CD-booting isn't supported.

edit:
They're back up, here's the relevant thread: http://tabletpcbuzz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12864

Unfortunately this sounds both likely and typical.
The USB DVD I have (non-bootable) says: Manufactured April 2004 on the label.

Hi, I am a new guy to tablet but I Saw your thread So maybe Z Think 2111 just great you Some of the scenario

I am using M 200 too, with the version 1.4 BIos So I can actually boot using my Sony CD-RW drive (not Combo) So l think basically the problems lies on your bios

Please enlighten me if there's any mistake