A C:\ promt for a blank HDD

[Gabe1972]

I have a blank notebook hard drive that I have an adapter installed on and I have it hooked to one of my ide lines on my desktop. I partition it, format it, label it, or whatever using the Windows XP built in disk management. Here is my question. Is there a freeware program (ie free download) that I can put in a small partition, or big partition, or whatever on this blank hard drive so when I put it in the laptop, and boot it up, instead of saying "operating system not found", which of course isn't on there, it gives me a prompt. Sort of like DOS. The reason I ask is because I am trying to avoid having to buy drives for this laptop to be able to install a new copy of Windows XP, which I already own. The laptop has no drives whatsoever, as if you have seen my post from a few days ago you already know. I can copy the I386 files onto the HDD and do it from there, but I have to have a prompt so I can get into the directory that contains the files. Installing WXP in my desktop and then putting the drive in the laptop is a no go. I can do it with W98SE just fine, but W98SE is not really what I want on the laptop. Any ideas? I tried copying the command.com file onto the HDD, as someone suggested to me, but the laptop doesn't open it and it just gives me the no OS garbage. Perhaps I am doing it wrong. Just trying to save a few bucks. And yes, the copy of XP that I am trying to install is a new, retail version. It is not installed on anything else and I have the COA. Please help guys. Thanks.

[Statica]

Go to bootdisk.com and download a Win98 bootdisk and create the boot disk for use on a floppy. Now boot up your computer using the Win98 bootdisk, partition and format the hard drive using the /s option (remember to set the partition as active). For example format e:/s where e: is the laptop drive.
Now boot back to WinXP; and transfer the XP files to it. Your drive when transferred to your laptop should be bootable.

[Gabe1972]

How big should I make the partition? Just big enough to contain the I386 files? What are the /s options? Will the partition I creat just be an FAT32 partition?

[Statica]

I would create 1 partition, about 1GB and store the i386 files in it. Leave the rest of the space unpartitioned so that you can do it with XP.
The /s option transfers the system files onto the hard drive and makes it bootable. Just copying command.com wont work!
If you enable large disk support the partition will be a FAT32.

[Gabe1972]

Is there a way to set the size of the partition? Doing the partitionin the FDisk way seems to want to partition the whole drive? BTW, I really appreciate you helping me. Thanks again. I had to just swap my desktop drive out and put the laptop drive in it's place because the bootup disk would't recongnize it. Perhaps if HP would have put a slave drive receptecle in the hdd drive ribbon, this would be going a little easier. Ug, if I ony had the USB floppy and CD drives that came with this comp. Grrrr. LOL BTW, it sounds like you have had a similar dillema as me, or just know a ton about computers.

[Statica]

No I dont have problems like you .. I wouldn't walk beside an HP/Compaq computer without getting the giggles
Check out: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q255...22120121120120 Section: How to partition and format a master hard disk -
For step 6:

After you press ENTER, you receive the following message: Do you wish to use the maximum available size for primary DOS partition? After you receive this message, use one of the following methods, depending on the file system that you selected.

Simply press N .. you will now be asked for the size you wish to dedicate to the partition.

[Gabe1972]

Thank you for the help. It worked perfectly.