Originally posted by: Slikkster
Note: For the steps below, it's necessary to have your hard drive formatted as Fat32. Bootdisks can't normally see NTFS disks. You can, and normally should, convert it to NTFS after installing. But that's up to you. It's not necessary. Just better security with NTFS.
Installing from hard drive:
It's not hard to do, but you need to know a couple of steps first. Remember, you're going to be installing from DOS mode, not Windows, so any setup.exe or winnt32.exe file won't work. But, there's a DOS file that starts the install with XP when you load it onto your hard drive.
By the way, while the XP CD has a few different folders and sub-folders, you must make sure that at least the I386 folder exists on your hard drive, and that it has the contents of your XP's I386 folder.
Once you copy the I386 folder and files over (or all the folders from the XP CD, if you wish), you're ready to install. But you'll need a bootdisk. Here's one that automatically loads smartdrv.exe (which XP will want running to install). Please download it and create the bootable floppy with it.
http://www.nerdlabs.org/bootdisks/diskimages/wbootess.exe Have a floppy ready when you run this file. It will walk you through. No need to make any options changes...it's set as is...just click OK.
Now, do the following:
Boot up with the bootdisk you created from the link above. When fully booted, and at the command prompt, type "C:" and tap the enter key. (do not use the quotation marks...just added here for emphasis)
Now, type "cd i386" and tap enter
Now, type "winnt" and tap enter.
Winnt.exe (not necessary to type the .exe) is the DOS-mode XP install file.
Now, let it do its thing.
Note: If your XP install CD is Pre-Service Pack 2, you may very well be totally unprotected when you first install it, so you might want to pay attention to the following warning:
Blaster worm warning: Enable the XP firewall before connecting to the internet. If installing XP with pre Service Pack 2 CD media do not immediately activate over the internet. Decline activation. Activate firewall before connecting to the internet. You can activate after the firewall is enabled and service packs and critical updates are installed.
To enable the XP firewall: Go to Control Panel - Network Connections.
Service Pack 2 discs should automatically enable the firewall. Nevertheless, there's no reason, really, to have the ethernet cable plugged in to the pc until post-installation.
Good luck. Should go smoothly.
Disclosure: Sections above taken from michaelstevenstech.com
Edit: If you don't have a floppy drive in your laptop, you can still do this. But what I would do is format the new hard drive as a fat32 drive, first of all. Then, I would simply copy all the files from the boot disk to the new hard drive's C:\ (aka "root") folder. Include the autoexec.bat and config.sys files.
Don't put all these bootdisk files in the c:\I386 folder on the C: drive. That folder is only for your XP CD's files. Put these bootdisk files in the C:\ directory itself.
There' s only one thing you need to change after copying the files to the C: folder. In the autoexec.bat file, you need to change this: (remember, don't type the quotes)
"PATH=A:\"
to
"PATH=C:\"
That's it. Once you've copied all these files to your new hard drive (including the I386 folder from the XP Cd), connect it back to your laptop and boot up. It should boot right to the C:\ prompt.
Then, just type:
"cd i386"
Then, type:
"winnt"
and you're good to go.
(I'm assuming your external USB enclosure has a 2.5" notebook drive connector, right?)