Inspiron 1300 - CDBOOT CODE 4

Hello.  I've been fighting with my Dell Inspiron 1300 while trying to reinstall Win Xp.  I kept getting a bsod while running the XP install.  the error was pci.sys.  I found info saying I needed to slipstream xpsp2 into the install.  I've done that but still cannot get it to boot off the install cd (now with sp2 added).  the error I get in "CDBOOT:  cannot boot from CD - code 4".  one comment I've found says I may need to update the bios to version a10.  since it appears there is no way to back up the bios before flashing it to v. a10, can anyone shed some light/experience on this?  I'd really hate to brick my laptop with a failure to update... know what I mean ?

thanks in advance for your help!