Q: I recently acquired an ultra-portable (read: no built-in CD-ROM drive) Sony Vaio laptop from my brother.
I want a clean install of Windows XP, but I do not have an external CD-ROM drive to buy. Is there anyway to copy the files from the CD to install on my desktop computers hard drive (or even the laptop HD), starting the network, run the setup.exe file from my desktop HD on my laptop, format the laptop HD and install Windows?
Is it possible to do this with a 512MB stick?
Thanks in advance.
Edit: I must say that a Google search yielded nothing for me.
Re:most laptops without cd's support PXE boot. Look at the altiris software for info on it (works great for pxe boot/configuration/net installs)
Re:Over the network, I would use a network boot disk (www.bootdisk.com – make sure you have drivers for the NIC!) and do a "net use X:{servername\share}". Seems that that would be kinda slow.
If I'm working on a laptop and don't have a CD-ROM (or it's external), I'll usually remove the HD and stick it in another machine using an adapter like this one – Laptop adapter (http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=906&sku=17705)
Boot the laptop HD while connected to another machine, format it (FAT32, make it bootable). Copy the contents of the WinXP CD to the laptop HD. Put the laptop HD back in the laptop, boot up to the C: drive and run setup… should work. (I think that's how I did it – it's been a couple of months.)
Re:I forgot to mention that my desktop computer and the laptop have Windows XP Pro. If I looked it up correctly, RIS can only be enabled on Win2k/2k3 Server.
I think I'll just go buy an external cd-rom drive, then return it when I'm done, but I'd still like to learn how to do the XP install over a network. I'll look into the things you guys posted.
Thanks 
Re:You can use RIS, or you can boot the machine to a DOS boot diskette with network drivers and run winnt.exe (I think?) from a network share.
Re:Google RIS, ghosting/imaging, and PXE. All three methods will work over a network.
Re:Text (http://www.networkworld.com/reviews/2003/1103msadsdoc.html)
PXE?
Multicast?
Imaging software?
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