I'm having a serious issue with a client's computer. First, they had a spyware infection so terrible that I couldn't recommend anything other than a format. The problem is that the old laptop has seen better days and its cd-rom drive is dead. If I had another old one sitting around I'd install it but I don't currently and I don't really have the time/money to order a new one for him at this point. He already purchased a new external CD-RW so I don't want to charge him any extra. So I used the following tutorial: http://www.syschat.com/install-wind... and I've managed to get almost all the way to where I need to be but when I get to the last step of installing xp I get this message asking me for the location of the asms. Well, by the time I've moved it to the HD I no longer have access to a cd-rom drive so I can't move installation along. This laptop cannot boot from USB, it has no floppies, and I'm afraid this little HD won't take much more abuse. I've even tried installing the OS entirely and just moving the HD over but I get BSOD. Any ideas would be greatly helpful.

Honestly, I would tell the client to purchase a laptop via tigerdirect.com ($300 - $400) and be done with it. XP on a Pentium... rough one.

Just copy the i386 directory from the CD to the HD before the install than point the install to the i386 directory. For a tech. you should know that you can not install XP on another machine and just transport the HD. Up to 98se sure, nt4, 2000, XP different beasts.

Actually, some people report that with certain mobos they are able to extract an hd and place it in another computer with limited problems but I'm well aware it's the exception and not the rule. As for the i386 directory, I can't get it to copy in its entirety using in Dos so I'm going to extract it again, use a USB adapter, put the i386 files on manually in Vista through USB and put it back in to install with Dos. What a mess!