I vaguely recall there was a hack to install it from USB but very few people ever did it, there was a long guide how to do it and it was a very fiddly process that removed any convenience one would think they were going to get!
You should be aware that trying install WinXP from USB is either a complete anacronism,or somewhat of an anacronism.
People weren't really doing that back then.People started installing from USB in windows 7 days.A good way to install XP(and here I don't mean by USB) is either from a CD,or by making a little partition on the HDD, puttin the setup files on there, and installing from there.
It may be possible to install WinXP from USB but i'm just saying you should know it's a ludicrously unusual non-standard thing2 do. One could boot off a boot disk then run the setup off the hard drive, or make the little partition bootable eg sys c: and boot off there.
Something like this https://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/578/windows-xp-installing-from-harddrive/
And there is something about smartdrv that will make it much faster.
Again, none of this is installing WinXP from USB. But I can see from the comments you have made, you are really just looking to install it. If somebody can point you to how to install it from USB then great.
The involvement of USB I'd suggest is you can make a Win9X USB boot disk (in the past people may have done that or used a floppy), and you could have the installation files copied on there, that's the i386 directory on any windows xp cd. Then copy it from the USB, to your hard drive. And run the WinXP setup off the hard drive.
UPDATE
Here is a link saying how to do it, in a process that is not fiddly, or not that more involved than the more standard process of installing from a hard drive. Though it is installing from the USB. https://www.poweriso.com/tutorials/how-to-make-winxp-bootable-usb-drive.htm The key seems to be to run E:\i386\winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource.
There are many guides online, usually involving tools that didn't exist at the time. And claim to make it work without the kind of extreme file fiddling i've seen some a classic old guide do. It may be worth trying them
Note that some people are saying there is another issue that XP doesn't recognise SATA. If that's so, then XP would either give you a BSOD(a google of which would make it clear what the issue was), or XP would prompt you for them(I don't recall which but possibly the latter),
There is a situation regarding XP and SATA, thanks to keltari for his comment and some pictures on this page for reminding me https://hexus.net/tech/tech-explained/software/1420-installing-windows-xp-3rd-party-sataraid-driver/ , XP doesn't have SATA drivers and does prompts you to press F6 to install SCSI or RAID drivers. SATA is not SCSI and you may or may not want RAID or want to use RAID, but you push F6 there, to install your SATA driver.
Then you could use a usb floppy drive or you could just copy the files into the correct directory within i386, so that the setup finds them automatically. Some people here have mentioned "slipstreaming" and nlite.. IIRC slipstreaming is rebuilding an ISO, you don't need to as you have the i386 directory on (easily!) writable media, so you can manually add the driver file(s) just by copying them in.
Best Answer
As i understand it, booting from DVD-Drive is not working and booting from USB is problematic. Then (without stripping the laptop apart for the harddrive) you're left with 2 options:
Option 1: You can (re)install Windows XP from within Windows XP. Provided XP does boot correctly. You don't have the option to format the drive but
Windows,Program FilesandDocuments and Settingswill be moved to aWINDOWS.OLDand you'll get a clean install.You don't need to mount an ISO to install Windows from Windows. All you need is the
I386-directory from CD (You can copy it over a network-share or if the USB is working for files via USB.) copy it toC:\I386and runC:\I386\winnt32.exe. Downside is your harddrive needs to be big enough to hold the new installation and the old WINDOWS.OLD. Also you need to do some cleaning afterwards to see what you can delete from that WINDOWS.OLD. And it is probably best to run a defragmenter afterwards.edit:
Windows XP does not create an old WINDOWS.OLD like i expected.
With the
New Installation (Advanced)Windows will install over the current installation. It will ask to delete the currentC:\WINDOWSbut it will leaveProgram FilesandDocuments and Settingsintact. (not exactly a clean install)Option 2: This one is a bit more difficult. Booting from the network.
How it works:
When you boot from your network-adapter it checks for a DHCP-server. The DHCP-server gives an IP and should tell the client where to get the bootloader (not all DHCP-server can do this). That bootloader is then fetched using TFTP. After that the bootloader should load the OS. This OS should be "network-aware". Linux is "network-aware" out of the box but for Windows you'll need to use the right files. (You can't just plop an .iso in there)
What you'll need:
For the DHCP-server and FTPD-server you could try TFTPD32 which has both in one. I also found some info on this page for setting this up.
You could also try Ultimate Deployment Appliance which has a complete "virtual machine"-image for this setup.
Some reading material:
Edit:
Neat. I just tried it, simple, with a 622C.IMG (bootable MS-DOS 6.22 floppy image).
Install (or extract) TFTPD32 to
c:\tftpd32(I just took the .zip, no need for install, just extract toc:\tftpd). Download syslinux-4.04.tar.gz from kernel.org. Extractmemdiskandpxelinux.0(search for them) from this archive and put them inc:\tftpd32\root. Download 622c.zip from bootdisk.com and put622C.IMGinc:\tftpd32\root. Make ac:\tftpd32\root\pxelinux.cfgdirectory. Put a textfile nameddefaultwith the following content in there:Now start
tftpd32.exeortftpd64.exe.In "Settings" put
C:\tftpd32\rootin the TFTP-tab and check the boxes:Fill in the DHCP-tab and check the settings: (Boot file = pxelinux.0).
Restart TFTPD.
Now start your laptop and choose network. If all is well your laptop should boot right to the DOS-prompt. You can now format your harddrive ;-) This was just a little exercise but this can also be done with BartPE and other Windows environments.
If your laptop does not start from the network it could be that you have to disable your current DHCP-server. (This was not necessary here, both my router and desktop acted as DHCP-server and my laptop took the right IP from the DHCP from my desktop)
Edit 2: These steps use
pxelinux.0to boot the laptop over the network. These pages show you how to usegrub4dosandtftpd32to boot IMG and ISO files.