XP install on new laptop hard drive over network

I have a HP Pavillion zx5000. The hard drive crashed so I bought a new one. My CD/DVD does NOT work and I need to install the operating system onto the new hard drive. Any ideas on how to do this? I don't have a home network, and I'm not sure how I would install the OS over the network anyway.

Question 1: Can I do it with a crossover cable? I.e. if I put the OS disk into the CD reader of another computer and have the two computers connected via a crossover cable, will my laptop (which has a totally blank hard drive) be able to see the CD of another computer at startup and then allow me to install the OS from it?

Question 2: If the answer to Question 1 is No, can I take out the hard drive of a second laptop that has a working CD, plug the new hard drive into this second laptop (maybe I'll need some sort of adaptor cable for this?), and then install the OS that way? Am I guaranteed not to mess anything up on the second laptop if I do this?

Or, are there any other easier ideas on how I can do this?

Thx

 

1) no, at least not the way you describe

2) you will hose both

To install and OS over a network, you need a computer with a nic that supports PXE and an RIS server. I never thought about it, but I suppose you could install it with just two computers and a crossover cable, but one computer would need to be a RIS server.

About the only want that I can think of to do what you want given your resources would be to drop the new drive into an old windows 98 machine, format the new drive as fat32, then run the sys command on it (sys d:, if the new drive were recognized as D, for example), then copy the windows xp installation files (the i386 directory of the CD). Drop the drive back into your other machine, and boot to a DOS prompt, then install using winnt.exe

 

put the hard disk anythey computer format it make boot

as fat32 copy the whole i386 folder to it

cd i386 folder

run winnt setup

install as normal convert it to ntfs

at end of the install

this only work if don,nt need any 3rd party drivers like sata but since you laptop most like ide it shound be no big deal

 

didn't I just say that?

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=5877

Your computer can boot from USB. So...

If you have a USB thumbdrive, you can try this:
http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

 

OK, I feel like I'm closer, but not quite there yet. gerryf mentioned to plug the new drive into an old win98 machine. Unfortunately, i don't have a win98 machine available. Can I follow the above instructions from a Windows XP machine instead by purchasing a USB adapter cable (maybe something like this: http://www.compusa.com/products/pro...usb+ide+cable&Ntk=All&product_code=50541464)? When I type "sys" at the command prompt from my XP computer, the command is not recognized. Is it a different command in XP?

 

Hmmm, let me try pasting that URL again, I don't think the last link I posted works...

http://www.compusa.com/products/pro...D=usb+ide+cable&Ntk=All&product_code=50541464