Reformatting a laptop with no floppy and broken cd

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watson540

New Member
A friend asked me to fix their computer, a dell latitude c600. It has no floppy drive, and the cd drive is broken. Is there any way I can format it and install windows without taking the hard drive out or replacing the cd drive? I have a wireless card in it and was thinking that maybe I could put the xp installation files on my computer, download them to the laptop through my wireless connection, partition the hard drive, reformat the partition, install xp to the new partition, and delete the old windows. Could this work? If yes, after deleting the old windows, what do I do to delete it from the boot menu? Is it in boot.ini?
 
That looks like one of those models where the drives come out quite easilly. I think both the HD and CD-ROM are each held in the case with a single screw. Remove that and they slide right out for easy swapping.

I've never loaded the files for XP on a HD to install, but I know it could be done with 98... Your best bet, though, would be to just replace the CD-ROM or get an external. I know the models beyond that one could boot from a USB device, and I think that one can as well...
 
You could copy the entire cd to the HD, but still there would be encryption stuff that would not copy. SO, the idea would work only with a pirated cd, and you're not using one of them right?
 
You can do a network install if I recall correctly, but I've never done one so I can't offer you any tips. Maybe do a Google search on it or something.
 
With the network idea there has to be a NAS (Network Attached Storage)

How can you load XP on a pendrive? I see the concept of the idea but would it have to be a copy of the CD, an ISO? but that would need to be mounted? Help.

I have the same situation.
 
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