No cd-rom to install XP

I have a compaq armamda 7800. I recently upgraded to a newer bigger hd. And my problem is I need to reintstall windows xp but i havent got a cd rom drive to install. Although u do have a external cd rom drive but does me no good with a formated hd. If anyone can reply on how to do this plase reply it would be greatly appreciate the help.

Compaq Armada 7800 Notebook (266-MHz Pentium II)

Pretty sure it won't take XP and all updates
You can either install Windows 98 or ME via floppy, or throw it away (either way is good )

It will take xp because that is what was on the old hd. But when it was installed it had 98 and the external cd rom was used to install the xp then. When the old hd was in the pc it did in fact take all the updates with no problems.

Yes it seems you are on absolute minimum
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314865

No. I've tried it but it did not have an option to boot from usb from the BIOS. I wish it would but it will not. Ty for the reply though.

Here's a good breakdown and what its got: http://h18002.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/10016_div/10016_div.html
It says it came with DVD Drive (not bad for an old computer)

Yea I know

Yes DVD drive was optional with some setups. but unfortunatly for me mine dident come with the optional DVD drive. I have an external HP cd-writer 8200 series that runs on usb conection. But there is no option to boot from it. I may have to find an windows 98 diskette. Install it and then install the xp from there. But thats what im trying to get away from. I already bought the xp I hate to buy 98 just to use to install the xp though.

If you know a friend with a desktop PC, you could do this. Buy an adapter for your hard drive (it will be a small IDE right ?) You can get these small-to-large IDE adapters for less than £1.50. With that, add your hard drive to your friends PC in temporary replacement of a CD for instance.

Then on the friends PC install and use a partitioning package e.g. EASEUS free, to create two partitions on your new hard drive (maybe 20Gb as NTFS for XP, and the second as NTFS all the rest for the data. OR nearly all in NTFS for XP and the install in a 2Gb partition at the end of the drive, all according to your preference). Copy the entire install CD of Windows XP onto THE SECOND partition, then you put everything back together, and using a suitable DOS boot disk, boot your laptop on floppy and install from the cd copy already on your hard drive. (Enter 'D:\setup' if you are at A: in Dos)

If you know what to do, it is even easy to make your hard drive C: bootable under Dos in the course of copying the CD there in the first place. I think Easeus will do the bootable bit as well, but not absolutely sure.

It wouldent be hard at all to do. Since the laptop came with a optional CD drive or a DVD drive. The only thing keeping me from doing so is the shortage of finding one. Because I refuse to buy off ebay where I have found a few of each and a few combo drives that are compatable with my system.

Ok guys thanks for the help. I done a little more research that I shoulda done in the first place. And found that my system is infact bootable from USB. But now i have a new problem. I need to get into the BIOS to finish with the install of xp. Problem is with the new HDD there is no BIOS partition located on my HDD. Now what?

Bootdisk.com has quite a few floppy and CD images, you can download a bootable floppy with drivers to use almost anything you want.

Code:

http://www.bootdisk.com

oh wow. I really don't recommend running XP on a system that old. XP is REALLY slow on any system with less than 1gb of ram and unbearable with 512mb of ram and just hell with anything less. I suggest using 98SE.

Well it no longer has 512mb of ram it has been upgraded to over 2gb of ram. But getting the OS on the HDD no longer is the problem. My problem now is i cant get into the BIOS to change my boot sequence to USB first. Because there is a partition on the OEM HDD with the BIOS on it and cant get into it to remove it from there and put it on the new HDD.

Bootdisk.com has nothing to help me at all tried a few from them and cant do anything without the partition with the BIOS in it. Thank you for your reply though. Any input is better than none at all I always say. LOL

Proper Win9X, XP or even Linux boot disk with USB drivers will allow you to see and access your external drive then initiate setup!.

I foud this on Compaq's site:

Setup_DIAGS.txt
By Rainald Taesler
May 07, 2004
Complete file attached.

SP9962 and the readme
SP16085 and the readme