How to install winXP without CDrom

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Hello everybody.
Here I am again.
I just got a laptop (Dell Inpiron 910) second hand and the OS missing so I want to install a brand new copy.
I have the CD that came with it but the thing is that the laptop has no cd drive nor floppy drive.
I have been in google but they mention having to take the HDD out well don't really wanna do that. Anyone has or knows of a better and easier way to do this please?
Any help well appreciated.
Cheers

 

1. Get an external hard disk and connect to your desktop using USB.

2. Put in your OS CD into cd drive of desktop and copy content into external hard disk.

3. Connect external hard disk using USB to your laptop.

4. I could be wrong here as I never tried it, boot to USB for the external hard disk and
I think it will start up the process of installing Windows.

I could be shooting myself in the foot here.

 

Yes I forgot to add the other option getting an external cd/dvd drive.

 

Bootable USB key? Network install? external HD or CD? Plenty of ways to install it...

 

Cheapest way is to get 8gb USB pen drives as you can copy the content on there. IT only cost about 10 pounds.

 

Hello BosonMichael.
I have done alot in 12 years but unfortunately I have never performed a network instalation of any sort, never delt with a bootable usb key, have tried to make my USB pendrive bootable when it first came out but never worked so quit, and I don't have an external optical drive, sorry
Anyway could you be kind enough to point me in the right direction for a network installation mate? Would be very much appreciated and would learn something new.
Thanks for your imput.

 

You'd have to have a network boot disk - one that gets you connected to the network so you can map to a shared drive and launch the executable installer. Very DOS old-school... and it's not easy. You'd have much better luck getting an external drive of some sort.

 

If your trying to install from a network share, you may need to boot from floppy, if you haven't got a PXE compliant NIC.

If you have a PXE compliant NIC then find the path of Winnt32.exe on the network share and run Winnt32.exe or run it from command prompt.

EDIT: You will need to have the installation files on the network share, obviously. So the i386 folder from the CD-ROM.

 

Thanks Sparky !

 

Only problem is finding pxe compliant network card for the laptop is not easy.

 

I'm not even sure if we know that there is one in the laptop !

Uhm, I've seen the specs for the NIC, its just LAN 10/100.

Anyone know how to find out if you HAVE a PXE Compliant NIC? Would love to know!

 

Just put the i386 folder from the Windows XP Professional installion CD-ROM on the RIS server then point to it from the laptop, run Winnt32.exe, follow the steps, done.

I've just looked at the spec of this Dell Inspiron 910, all the specs check out against Windows XP Professional hardware requirements. Also the NIC is LAN 10/100.

EDIT: Specs for Dell Inspiron 910

 

You normally see it in the boot process NIC displays some info.

if you don't have a bookable OS, normally will be the last boot attempt by default.
Also in bios it will be in boot order settings.

 

Yes but is it PXE compliant though

 

Yes but thats how you can generally tell on any pc for future reference


if you dont have a cd, floppy or RIS server

(yes you do have to have another pc to do this with cd, floppy)

Copy I386 from xp cd to another networked PC, and create network share

download

http://www.netbootdisk.com/ <<<- would hope that one of the realtech drivers are compatable
or http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/ no longer supported

Make floppy

use Bart MKBT (http://www.nu2.nu/mkbt/)

to make bin image of floppy and make bootable thumbdrive

mkbt -c a: bootsect.bin

mkbt -x bootsect.bin G: (G: = thumb drive)

Check BIOS boot order

boot from thumbdrive on lappy

connect to network share and goto i386

start setup via winnt.exe