Can I boot up a computer with no internal HDD with windows xp from a bootable usb?

[Rasmus007]

I got my hands on an old pc made to work with windows xp and i fixed it up by adding in some old ram and fixing the cabling. But there is no hard drive to work with and i was wondering if i created a bootable windows xp iso usb could i boot it up just fine. But when i attempted to do so it would not boot off it saying no hdd or cd available but then it would say "booting from (usb name)" and then repeat the same error message over and over so clearly not working. Do i need to have a HDD installed or at least maybe a operating system like Puppy Linux that mainly uses only ram to operate, thanks for all the support!

 

[jsmithepa]

First off, old machines may not be able to boot from USB, the BIOS will tell you.

2nd, you can boot (assuming USB bootable) a XP install ISO, but you cannot install a full Windows onto a flash and run it there, Windows is not Linux.

 

[Rasmus007]

First off, old machines may not be able to boot from USB, the BIOS will tell you.

2nd, you can boot (assuming USB bootable) a XP install ISO, but you cannot install a full Windows onto a flash and run it there, Windows is not Linux.

now i do know windows is not linux but far from it, and i was beginning to wonder if the computer will even allow boot from usb although i did boot up kali linux straight from a usb from the computer it allowed it completley! i recently got a hard drive but not sure how to get a proper install of windows xp because everytime i put in the windows xp or windows 98 disk and harddrive installed correctly it just says invalid system disk and harddrive

 

[Rasmus007]

and i do have iso files so i attempted to run them burnt properly onto a usb but they will also give an error and not launch properly