Installing a second OS on a second hard drive

[ColdWar]

Ok here's my issue. I have a laptop from 2007 that i paid pretty good money for and am not ready to get rid of yet. I'd like to use it strictly for audio recording since I finally have a desktop that handles everything else. The problem is the internal CD drive on the laptop quit working years ago. Im pretty sure I could contact the manufacturer and buy another one for not too much money, but before I try that, I want to know this. Can I take the hard drive out of my laptop, hook it up to my current desktop (which runs win 7) and use the original win xp install disk to fully load XP on the laptop hard drive? i tried using a USB cd drive on the laptop but i ran into issues with it recognizing the drive after formatting. and Ive tried the thing where you put the files from the disk on a thumb drive and install windows like that, but its a very glitchy, slow as molasses install. i tried 4 or 5 different programs and only found 2 where i could get all the way through the install, but like i said, they kind of suck.

 

what im wondering is, when you go through the xp install, you have to answer a bunch of questions because you are "setting up your computer for the first time". how do i get through those questions if that hard drive is connected to another computer? and i dont wanna accidentally fuck something up on my desktop. thanks!

[ColdWar]

halp anybody? im afraid to go ahead and just try this and end up really fucking something up on my desktop.

[Bob Loblaw]

You should be able to, and you could always remove your desktops harddrive and temporarily replace it with your laptops so as to avoid any chance of overwriting your current data.

 

Also I've done it multiple times through usb (including my most recent reformat to windows 8). I haven't had a problem of it not recognizing the drive though. Is your usb really old by chance?

[ColdWar]

the usb cd drive im using was like a $10 chinese one, could have something to do with it not being recognized haha. i bought it after the internal one quit working just so i could have something that worked. i finished backing up everything on my computer and im about to create the recovery DVDs, so i guess ill just plug it in the second HD and just try it.

[Tweezy]

You should be fine to do that. I would recommend disconnecting your current hard drive to make sure you don't accidently wipe your data and also knowing windows it will probably screw your boot loader.