Accessing USB drives from DOS

I guy I know has an older tablet PC that originally had Windows 2000 on it. He wanted to install XP on it so he pulled the hard drive and formatted it on a different PC (since the tablet doesn't have a built-in CD drive). He then got his hands on a USB CDROM, but due to the age of the tablet, there is no 'boot from USB' in the BIOS. I have tried every option I can think of to boot from the USB CD but no dice. So, I have been trying to install XP by copying all the needed files to the hard drive, and installing w/o using the CD. I have done this successfully in the past, but something keeps going wrong, and I keep getting "NTLDR not found" errors. Yes, NTLDR is on the drive. The easiest way to do this would be to be able to access the USB CDROM drive from DOS. I've been using a Win98 boot floppy to format the hard drive (using the system files switch "/s") and I've installed regular CD support. How do I add USB support? Is it possible?
Thanks!

 

Hmmmm, I don't know for sure here dlb but maybe the USB port has to have 2.0 capabilities before something like that can be done. What kind of a tablet computer is it?

 

It's an older Fujitsu Stylistic LT C-500. I've been messing with it off and on for the past week, but today I've really been pounding away at it. Here's the full lowdown. I formatted the drive FAT32 with system files, HIMEM, and SMARTDRV. That way I can boot to it and be in DOS. I copied the I386 folder from the XP install CD to the drive (using a different PC naturally). I've been trying to install XP by running the appropriate setup file from the I386 folder, and it goes along just fine copying/creating the needed files and folders, then after the first reboot, it hits the fan. I get the 'NTLDR is missing'. I've done some research, and this may be due to the fact that the hard drive was formatted on a different PC (it has something to do with INT13 extensions and head values in the BIOS parameter block), but there's no other way to format the drive. So I'm stuck. If I could access the USB CDROM from DOS, all problems would vanish, but so far it's impossible. I've tried just about everything at this site and none of it has worked. I did eventually get it to try to recognize the USB CD, but it said it couldn't enable it. :banghead Other things I've checked online are all the same as the site I just linked to. I'm at a loss, and hate to admit defeat, but I might have to.... I've installed XP before without using a CD, and it's worked; I have no idea why I'm getting the 'NTLDR not found' at the first reboot, unless it really is because it's formatted on a different PC...
:cry

 

Could you put the HDD in another computer and install XP to it that way? If you don't install any drivers it should be fine. (I hoperolleyes.)