Installing OS onto hard drive and moving the hard drive, help!

[TSFroggy]

Hello all,

I am having trouble installing Vista/XP (either will work now, I'm not picky) onto my wife's laptop. My biggest problem? It doesn't read CDs anymore and won't boot through USB.

My attempts to install an OS onto the drive through my main computer and then move it to said lappy have been fruitless. Can anyone tell me of a surefire way to get it to work?

[Lvcoyote]

You can load the OS to the drive like you have, then before you remove it from the computer, run sysprep, it will prepare the OS for a move to another system. IIRC there is a great tutorial on how to use it over at [H] forums.

[DJ_Datte]

Easy fix if you can use Vista, install Vista on your other computer, when it starts booting the OS after file copy / extraction, move the disk to the other computer, and let the OS finish installation there (driver detection, setup).

/DJ