Old laptop

[chief]

I have an old laptop with my brother brought home from work one day. Now, the dvd/cdrom doesn't work, the floppy drive doesn't work and I'd like to format and install a new OS. It currently has ME installed.

I have an external hdd, anyone have any guides to installing XP or Linux on a laptop with no working removable drives?


Thanks.

[x86/Z80asm]

Im not sure if the thing has a built-in network adapter. What model is it?
My T23 has an option to boot off network, you can try something along that lines if it has the adapter.

[chief]

Its an older compaq model, not sure of the model but it only has a 56k connector.

[mander]

If its that old then I wouldn't even bother putting XP on it. It will run slow if the requirements are not up to snuff