Install Xp from separate partition same hard drive?

[camplo]

I have a computer that Im trying to fix, the only way to input to the computer at this point and time is the hard drives. I have a working computer obviously. So could I take the hard drive out of the broken computer, give it two partitions, copy the windows install to one partition, start the the install in the broken computer from that partition and install that onto the second partition? Ive heard of this being down but I am no expert.

 

[mhelm1]

It can even be on the same partition.

 

[camplo]

Well I cant get it to work. Heres what I'm working with.A broken computer that I can remove the IDE HDD back and forth, no Bios support for USB booting. A working computer to move the hard drive back and forth from, Bios supports usb boot, an iso of tiny xp and tiny 7.
I broke my DVD bunrer this morning hot switching the power on the broken computer trying to figure out why some HD where spooling up and others weren't. COme to find out, I was killing hard drives from the hot swapping, and eventually my dvd burner.

The plan is to install one of the bootable isos to the usb, boot up from the usb, install windows to hard drive, move hard drive to broken computer.

I can't create a bootable usb off of those isos for the life of me.

I tried dumping the ISO to a partition on the blank hard drive but it said no "ntldr". I could pull those from my C drive on the working computer and try again but a similar situation with the usb drive suggest it might not work.

 

[mhelm1]

First of all the ISO disks are not bootable they are disk images that can create a windows installation disk. You need a bootable windows OS disk.
Can you get someone to burn the iso to a disk?