If the laptop has recent windows you might want to try unetbootin. Put the iso on the hard drive. There are 2 ways of running unbetbootin. iirc, if it asks for the USB that's the wrong one, it won't work in your case. Pick the other one which asks where the ISO is.
I went and bought a DVD drive for my old laptop, it was like US$6 and shrinkwrapped. I figured I will be using it to test a LOT of live CDs or DVDs
There is also the remote possibility that you can launch the CD's autorun.bat from windows, if your laptop still has win.
Check to see if there is a BIOS update for your laptop that will let it boot from USB.