Installing XP on Laptop without CDROM

[dave cummings]

Hi all,
Let me start by saying I have worked in IT for ten years now but this one haas me stuck!

I have a Compaq Armada E500 laptop without a CDROM and an empty HDD.

I want to install windows XP onto the Laptop but how can I do this without buying a CDROM
The Laptop doesnt support booting from USB.

Now I can get windows 98 onto the system via the floppy drive and copy the contents of the windows xp cdrom onto the hdd in the second partition (d) but when i run the setup.exe it runs but fails to cpy the files. I have tried this three times now! I have even tried running the setup from a windows 98 boot disc by running
d:\i386\smartdrv
d:\i386\winnt

but when windows copies the files it fails to copy them!!!

Any ideas?

 

[riser]

If you had access to RIS you could do it that way but most likely not.
Another option would be to create an image without the HAL, meaning you might lose ACPI functions.

Borrow a USB cd-rom from someone and use the floppy disk install option found on Microsoft's website when you search for "windows xp floppy install" on MS or Google.

That'd pretty much cover your bases as XP installs tailored to the hardware, hence the whole reason you change the HAL under Device Manager when creating an image - that way it rebuilds upon install.