How to install WinXP Home Edition when you do not have the original media

Hi, I am stuck with a weird problem. Probably this must have been discussed & answered many times over many forums, but I couldn't locate one which could help me out..

I have a old compaq presario 2500 2513AI laptop with a genuine winxp home edition sticker at its side. Unfortunately I formatted the system without creating a rescue disk and now I am stuck as I cannot find a genuine xp home installation media anywhere.

HP & Microsoft customer care's (& service centers) both say xp home is unsupported and they cannot help. Also a quick google search to find a genuine xp home installation iso did not yield any thing. However, I do have a backup (not image) of the original disk, which includes the original winxp installation files (i386 folder).

Is there any way I can install win-xp home edition using these installation files? Any leads on this will be very helpful..

You can try to obtain Windows XP Setup disks for a floppy boot installation. You can obtain Windows XP Setup boot disks from Microsoft, but only by download. They provide the Setup boot disks so that you can run the Setup program on computers that cannot use a bootable CD-ROM. If you can start your computer from a CD-ROM or from a network-based installation, we strongly recommend that you use those installation methods instead. More information can be found here.

The floppy boot installation procedure you mentioned requires 6 floppies, I am not sure if I can find floppies here in the local market..

Also, this old laptop does not support booting from usb pen-drives. So I guess, I will have to try CD-ROM or network-based installation.

Is it possible to create a boot-able CD using some method analogous to creating boot-able pen drives as mentioned here probably using oscdimg tool?

There is a tool called WinToFlash that can be used to make a bootable USB installer for Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7. WinToFlash is a free download and is totally portable. It's an excellent tool to add to your USB-related utilities. The default options make it easy to roll a silent Windows install, or you can flip the custom switch and specify the exact setup parameters you want to use.

Since this old laptop does not support booting from usb drives, wintoflash won't work.. :(

I tried creating a bootable cd from the original setup using oscdimg tool and a boot-image from another win xp pro cd. The cd boots fine but then setup stops and asks to insert a Win XP Home Basic SP1 CD. I probably will need a correct volume label for the cd.

Any other ideas?

Why dont you get yourself an external cd/dvd writer which will solve all the hassle. There is one such HP dvd556s dvd writer which will cost you $82.59 and it also provides high performance. Or else go to ebay store and chooses your region and buy it from their as cheap as you want and after buying simply install the windows xp on your laptop.

I am not getting this.. I already have a CD/DVD writer and that does not seem to help solve *all* the hassles. :(

Plz any other leads..

Can you try to use barts to install it possibly. Barts also makes a network boot disk that will allow you to mount the shared cd on a network. Check the tips given here to install windows xp on a network.

Thanks for all the tips. Barts could have solved my problem, however instead of attempting to create a bootable disk out of winxp home installation files, I created a winpe bootable CD (instructions here). Once booted into winpe, I was able to run the setup from an external drive. :)