Any way to install an OS without a cd-rom?

It's possible on desktops to install and move it to another pc. You just have to make sure no drivers are installed for any hardware. But that's for desktops. It might not work on a laptop. But you'd have to physically remove the hard drive and see if it can even connect up. If you can it MIGHT work...but no guarantees considering desktops/laptops are different in hardware.

Can you tell us more info about the laptop? Ie, mfg, model, etc.

What about booting from a network?

This actually is the way we used to do it in the Win 3.1 and 95 days. Put that laptop drive in another system as a secondary drive, format the drive, COPY the installation files for Windows onto that drive into a Winstall directory, make the three or four NT bootable floppies. Put the drive back into the bare laptop, boot with the floppies, and point to the install directory when prompted. You DO need a working floppy drive in the laptop. It is also possible to create a bootable loader on the HD either pointing to a directory with the floppy files, or to a memory driver before going to the install directory (without Smartdrive or its descendants, copying the files is very, very slooooww.)

If there is no internal floppy drive...Even if the USB port is not bootable with a USB stick, it may boot from a USB-attached floppy. Every laptop I've encountered will do so.

if that doesn't work here's a option.Well there are laptop hardive to USB connecters or laptop HDD to IDE connecters, but you will have to remove the HDD from the laptop!!!,using a cable like that you can connect it in to another PC and copy the bootable files and setup files to your laptop HDD. Here's a link for a Laptop HDD to IDE connector
http://www.amazon.com/Laptop-Drive-Adapter-Idc44f-idc40...

Well, I already have the IDE converter, and I've already tried installing Fedora on a different system then moving it to the laptop with no luck, so I figure XP with it's copy protection crap will just be worse. Anyway my friend has a USB floppy so I can give that a try, but I'm not sure how one would hook 2 drives up to a laptop. Would different partitions work?

So basically, I put a small partition with the files from the CD at the end of the disk, boot off the floppy and direct it to setup.exe(or whatever it is, it's been a while), and I should be good?

You don't need to partition the drive, that just adds a drive letter and possible confusion. When Windows install starts use the existing format, don't reformat.

Put the laptop drive into a DESKTOP with that laptop desktop IDE adaptor and use the windows "new drive" wizard to format the drive, and the desktop's CDrom to copy the windows install files onto the laptop drive. Don't name the install directory windows or WinNT. Leaving it as i386 is a good idea. You can copy the i386 folder from the XP disc just fine, there's no "copy protection" on any Windows or Vista install DVD nor CD, just to allow for this type of install.

I have seen posts on how to make flash drives bootable from DOS. You could try that and make an image of the OS CD onto the flash drive on another computer and try booting from it on the laptop.

Sounds good, thanks for your help, I was going crazy trying to get this thing working  

now to find that damn Windows cd...