What is the best way to do this?

[Enterra]

Hello, I'm kind of a newbie here, but i was hoping that you could point me in the right direction.

I am trying to install windows xp professional onto a extremely small pc that has no floppy, cd drive or standard method of transferring data, except for a nic card and usb ports. There is no operating system currently installed. I do not have an external cd or dvd drive. I do have a thumb drive (flash drive, what ever those little buggers are called)

Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks!

 

[site3op]

If your bios supports booting from USB, you could try copying a OS CD to your thumbdrive (that is if it has the room) and try installing from that. Do a search for "bootable thumb drive" and you'll come across programs to make it bootable. I know HP has one.

 

[Proximon]

Buy or borrow a CD drive... they are cheap. Open the case and plug it into the IDE cable and power. This will likely involve some kind of makeshift stand to get the device close enough to reach the cables... like some stacked up books or a box.

You will of course need to make sure it's recognized in BIOS and can be booted from.

 

[dmroeder]

I agree with Proximon. Take your pick here. You have to know someone you could borrow one from.

 

[Enterra]

Well, I wish it were that easy, I guess what I meant to say is this pc doesn't have a ide or sata slot for a dvd or cd rom, and I don't have an external. I take it network installs are either antiquated or not possible?

 

[Proximon]

I don't think you understood. IDE channels all come with the ability for at least one master, and one slave. We are not talking about putting a CD drive inside the case... we're talking about temporarily connecting one to the same channel your HD is connected to.

If the ribbon cable connected to the HD has no connector for a slave, you'll need to temporarily replace it.

AFAIK, network istallations require pre-configured OS'S. They are for networks with many identical machines, where exact clones of the OS can be remotely installed.

You cannot just run XP installation from another networked machine.

Unless this is a very bizarre little computer it can physically support a CD drive... it just has no space for one in the case.... so don't put it in the case, leave it outside, but connect it to the cables.