Installing Win on a laptop with a hotswap CDRom/3x5 bay...How?

Ok,
Here's where I'm at.I'm trying to install windows on a laptop that has a hotswap bay that's shared by the cd rom drive and the 3x5 floppy drive.The hard drive has been formatted with a 98 boot disk using the a: drive.I need to install ME,the an XP upgrade(all I have).Obviously I cannot run the diagnostics with cd rom support,so this is where I'm running into problems.I cannot get the setup to run from the cd at all.I've tried to run the boot disk without cd support,and then swap drives from a prompt,and c prompt,but I get an Invalid sys disk error.Ive also tried to boot from cd rom with no luck...any ideas?

 

good idea xflat
trouble is if he aint got boot from cd option i dont expext hes got network boot either

 

generally this would need to be a bios option to recognize the network

but i admire your determination

 

Wow...I'm overwhelmed by the help gang!!!!
Ok...When I boot the machine with the floppy drive,I do get the choice of boot with and without cd support,just cannot make the "with" work.I do have access to another computer,and had thought of the network idea.Will this work using the usb's on both machines?Xflat,I'll try the link and see how far I can get with it.
Thanks for the input!!!

 

ok i dont think the usb to usb network boot will work unless youve got either network boot or usb boot device in your bios as it just wont be recognised

just to make sure we clear this up you posted earlier that you tried booting with the cd now did you set the bios to boot with cd or just plugged the cd drive in and tried that

in which case do you have any options in your bios concerning boot device or boot order

otherwise youll have to look into the link Xflat found i havent had time to investigate it fully myself so please let us know how you get on

 

Actually I tried both ways.Just plugging in the cd drive and chaniging boot order in the bios.

 

what happened when you had the bios set to boot from CD ROM

have you tried that with the xp disc doesn't matter if its an upgrade CD it will just ask you to put in the old version of windows to prove eligibility for the upgrade then continue with installation

 

When I boot from cd or any other way,I get the same message.."Invalid sys disk error".Did try to boot frm XP disk and get same error.

 

OK...I got ahold of a network card for the laptop...Better than usb I assume...any sugguestions on my next step?

 

im not 100% sure man at the moment as usually you need to have network boot option in the bios to get it recognized i was going to read through that link from xflat but seems to be down at the moment