USB Flash or Network XP Install

[obsidian]

I have a laptop that doesn't have an optical drive or a floppy. It does have USB and flash card readers. I'm wondering how I can install Windows XP on this thing.

A USB flash drive would work best, but I'm not sure how I can transfer the XP CD onto the flash drive and have the flash drive boot.

Otherwise, would it be possible to install through a network with the XP disc in another computer with an optical drive?

[GONNAFISTYA]

Apparently you can make a boot disk on a USB mem stick. I think there are articles on microsoft.com but I don't think it's a full XP install.

I can't remember exactly where but I did quickly look over an article on that about a month ago when I had problems with my machine not finding the boot disk.

[AmIdYfReAk]

Why wouldnt you just take out the HDD, install DOS into it, copy the windows CD over to it, put it back into the lappy, boot, and you're done.

you could take that way, but the thing should have support for booting off of USB media, then get a USB based CD-ROM, or a Cheap ass USB enclosure and connect a CD rom to it and BOOT off of that..

i mean, there are tons of options that you could do here.

my "Crap-lap" has NOTHING on it, litterly... it has 1 USB ( non bootable ) and a VGA out.. and i do it the ole dos way

[GONNAFISTYA]

Nerd.

[AmIdYfReAk]

...... and that is why I'm here...

And why i do this for a living... well, for now..
thanks for reminding me, i need to check my voice mail

[§ìgñå]

I know how to install ubuntu from a flash drive, but never tried xp.

[AmIdYfReAk]

yea, actually, if you're a little bit savvy with Linux, you can boot from a Key ( ubuntu, DSL, or any kennupix release ) and Format the drive and copy the files through the network ( somba share ) or use a USB based drive again..

That way you'll get around the formatting issues you'd run into with the DOS way.

[Foo]

Painless method is a USB CDRom drive. ~15 quid.

[obsidian]

This is on a new netbook that I bought. I'm not taking out the hard drive, it took me half an hour and some 15 or so screws to disassemble the motherboard from the chassis just to stick in an extra 1GB stick of RAM (no memory flap though there is a very deceiving flap on the bottom that doesn't look like it leads anywhere). The HD is even further in.

I have Ubuntu on a flash drive and will be installing that on a partition.

Part of the idea is to be able to keep an updated slipstreamed XP on the memory key and the fact that I will be on an extended leave for a while and don't want to lug around an external optical drive. USB flash drive is the logical choice. Since it's pretty easy to create a bootable flash install with Linux, I figured it would be possible with XP as well.


Found this, might work, will try..

Edit: It works! Installing right now.
Edit2: I found out the flap on the bottom of the laptop is for a 3G card.