the goal: install Windows 2K on laptop

what i have:
- HP Omnibook 4100; MMX Intel Pentium II
- 18-20 GB HD
- Notebook HD enclosure
- WinXP desktop

the issue:
- BIOS password locked by previous owner which i dont know
- cant change boot order
- need Windows 2K (or 98SE if i have to) to be installed
- laptop HD taken out, attached to an external USB HD enclosure and reformatted from WinXP desktop

the question:
- how do i achieve the goal given this situation?
- bootable HD? with prompts?

[1] I would make the HD bootable with DOS, not XP.

[2] Is there a floppy? If so, will it boot on floppy?

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

I'm not familiar with that laptop, I assume that you do NOT have a floppy drive?

I assume you've tried, and that it will NOT boot from the CDROM?

I'm not sure how you do this from a USB hdd enclosure, so you may need to buy an IDE to laptop cable adaptor, such as:

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat%5Fid=906&sku=17705&engine=adwords!654&keyword=%28laptop+hard+drive+adapter%29

which will allow you to temporarily hook the laptop drive to your desktop computer

Then, you can use at least this method:

Using a '98 bootdisk, create either one or two FAT32 partitions.

"Format/s" the C: partition, then format the second partition (if you made two)

After formatting, copy the entire \I386 folder/directory off the install CD over to the laptop drive.

Reinstall the drive in the laptop, and boot.

Navigate to \I386 and launch

winnt.exe

There might be a few glitches along the way, but that's the basics.

I BELIEVE this here bootdisk:

http://www.freepctech.net/files/wxpboot.exe

which came from here:

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

is the "one" that makes this works. You need to load "smartdrv"

Regarding the BIOS password. You could try contacting HP's tech support and ask them how to reset it on that particular model.