The plan: install Windows XP onto a bunch of little old laptops. The problem: they have no optical drives, floppy drives, nor usb ports. Tools: i have at hand a windows 7 x64 ultimate, a folder of XP with SP3 integrated, and a shiny new hard drive multiport usb adapter. So i've taken the hard drive from one laptop, and connected it to my Win 7 pc. this allows me to partition and format the hd. And copy over the i386. But, i cannot "format z: /s" nor "sys z:" because of Win 7 compatibility. Likewise i cannot winnt32 /syspart:z: / tempdrive:z: and stick the drive back in the laptop as i hoped. Can anyone suggest a solution? Update] i've just set up oracle virtualbox, and an xp (flp), all on the win7 but this doesnt appear to be helping. As i cannot access the z: (not sure why) I've been reading about Installing XP Mode. But it seems to be just running xp in virtual - which i've already got. update] ah ha! it seems i needed to add a USB Filter to the virtualbox machine, so now my HD is showing up. boo hoo - win XP does not allow switch/s nor sys. Arrrgh. update] i'm now setting up Win98se in Virtualbox. i hope to add the USB filter as before, and then "format z: /s", copy i386 over to z: (or a second partition i think is best) and then stick back where the sun doesnt shine... Please if anyone knows a quicker way...If I am all here, does that mean I am not all there?

Why you bother this much when there's the possibility of using a USB drive to install Windows. No need to remove hard disk from a laptop and connect it to Windows 7 PC to install Windows. Use Win to Flash which is a freeware so you can copy your XP setup files to your pen drive and use it to install Windows on your laptops.MCTS: Windows 7, COnfiguration