NTLDS is missing, can't install Win XP

[nvalhalla]

So I have an unusual problem it seems. My friend bought a new hard drive, Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 PATA, and tried to hook it up to his computer. Now, I don't know exactly what he did with this drive before it got to me, but I know he got it formated, what kind of format I don't know, and he tried to put Win XP on it. That's when he started having problems. He handed it to me in hopes that I would be able to get the OS on it for him with my computer (he's not very skilled with them). So I take the HDD out of my computer and attach his, master on IDE1, and my Cdrom as slave. I POST, check BIOS, and both drives are found and correct. I set boot options to cd-rom -> HDD -> none. There is no selection for HDD 1 or HDD 2, just HDD. So I reboot, and put the XP cd in. It says loading DMI pool, booting cdrom, and then nothing. Can't soft reset have to push the button. So I try it with another XP cd, thinking it's the disk. Same effect. So I recheck BIOS, all's well. I tried moving the HDD to the other IDE channel. Now I get something new. It makes it past booting cdrom, and pretends it's going to load, even gives me the little dots after cdrom. For a second I think "cool" but then it says "NTLDS is missing." Have to hard reset. And that is where I'm stuck. Rechecked all cables, not the problem. Put my HDD back and checked the cdrom, no problems. I don't know what else to do. I don't have a floppy drive so that's not an option. I do have a USB flash drive, if that can substitute for a floppy should one be needed.