As far as my knowledge goes as an ITO.... USB, and Booting from disc are they only ways its possible to load a .iso file up... you may have to double check though perhaps there is a networking way around it...
However if you put that Hdd into another Laptop temporally, you could then use the disc drive or usb slots to load up your OS and then switch the Hdd's over once it's done..
Goodluck
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