Xp Home, Network Install, with a twist?

I have just received an old Compaq laptop with a dead DVD drive and a damaged OS that needs to be installed.

The dead DVD means I cant use the manufacteres disks that came with teh laptop. It does have 2 x USB ports but the BIOS does not offer a boot from USB option, just Hard Drive, CD, Floppy and Network.

Is there a way to get it to boot from a network connection or floppy disk then run the recovery cd's?

 

What model of laptop are you working with, what operating system do you have?

 

can you remove the hd put it in another computer and copy a new os on it the put it back in that laptop

 

From past experience with XP installing the OS on another PC is very hit & miss and 9 times out of 10 results in BSOD with variations between STOP 7B and 7E all of which are headaches I can do without.

 

I'm just throwing out ideas here not sure if they are viable hopefully someone will come by and clean up what I'm about to say...
if you can get to the dos prompt, from there could you attach an external cd drive, is there a way to get to that external cd drive from dos and have it run the program that way