install windows xp without cdrom (or floppy)
You might need a cpu with floppy & winxp source (or cdrom & winxp cd) get/make a bootable win98 floppy (http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm) a laptop drive to ide hard drive convertor for ide cable (2.5 inch to a 5.25 inch IDE Adapter)
basically create a small (2GB?) partition on some empty space on the target hd -make this the primary partition -format the partition for fat32 (win-dos, remember!) -put basic win dos files (from your bootable floppy) onto the partition (an easy way would be a:\format c: /s)
himem.sys", "smartdrv.exe" "format.com" "fdisk.exe".
write a 'config.sys' file with this line
device=himem.sys
write an 'autoexec.bat' with this line
smartdrv.exe
If you receive an "Invalid drive specification" at any point, then the drive was either... a) not partitioned correctly or b) the drive is not hooked up (as a slave drive to a cpu with a floppy drive)
-copy the i386 install folder onto your "boot" partition (e.g. c:\winxp\i386)
-replace the target cpu hard drive & boot with the new install partition start the windows installer (when prompted give c:\winxp\i386 as the source) 'c:\WINXP\I386\WINNT.EXE'.