[brujakob]

Hello,

I was wondering if there is any way of installing Windows XP in a hard drive partition without the use of a CDROM (whether internal or external). I have an external drive, and I can get an image of the installation cd of windows XP. Can I do anything with these things?

I was also thinking, but I would prefer not to do this, that I could get an image of windows xp installed somewhere and then mount it?



Any help would be greatly appreciated,



Thanks in advace.

[Leto_Parallels]

From what I understand, if you have a legal retail copy of Windows XP (not an OEM copy) and you make an ISO on another machine, it's legal if you transfer that .ISO to the Mac using a thumbdrive or external hard drive and install it. Just as long as it's a digital backup for your own use.
Also, if you installed Windows on a seperate machine and used a program like ParallelsTransporter, you could create a transferable copy of that partition, then move it over to the Mac using an external drive (or over your network) and run it inside a virtual machine (Like Parallels Desktop).

[brujakob]

How would I install windows XP from an external hard(containing .ISO of intallation cd-rom) drive through bootcamp? I relly appreciate your answer.

[Leto_Parallels]

Good question, actually... I haven't personally tinkered with Boot Camp enough to tell you for sure.
For a VM, it would work because you're already in OS X. For Boot Camp, though, you'd be booting totally clean into the Windows partition, with no way to tell it "hey, there's an ISO right on my hard drive with the data you want!". It just looks for a CD and gives up when there isn't one. The Windows installation is extremely limited that way.

I can remember quite a few times where I had to keep my fingers crossed trying to reinstall Windows with a dying CD-ROM (took like 2 hours). With no drive at all, you might be stuck until you can grab an external CD-ROM from somewhere.



Again, I'm no expert on Boot Camp. Maybe someone else here knows a way.