My DVD drive broke down on me, I ripped the files from the DvD with another computer to my partition J:. I want to dualboot it with XP 32-bit. The problem is, I can't set the bootsector since I can't configure the Vista bootsector in XP32-bit (because it's 64-bit).

Is there any way I can boot pre XP and set the bootsector manually?

Sorry for double post...

I might add that I have the installation files on drive J:. I want to initate that installation but that won't work while in the XP32-bit environment. How can I launch that installation?

I also have an external HDD if that helps at all.

Buy a DVD Drive they are cheap £10 $20

I already spent 200 Euros (280$) for a new SATA and 2GB of RAM...if there is no other way I might have to buy one (but it's not 20$ here...more like 60$ from the local store).

There must be another way...also I don't even know if it'll work even correctly on my system.

:/

You can't just rip the installer files -- it is not going to work!

Now if you have an .iso image of the Vista DVD on your HDD & you have a virtual disc, you can mount the image to start the installation.

Sorry but wasn't it obvious that that wouldn't work? I tried it already. I would run the mounted image on a 32-bit environment and that doesn't work. :/