   what files to copy to hard drive to make it bootable into dos?
  I have a laptop without a cd rom.  So I took the hard drive out and copied windows xp setup files to it and now I want to place it back in the laptop, have it boot into dos then run the xp setup.What files do I need to copy to the disk so when the computer boots up it will boot into dos and recognize the partition?   
  If you can get a DOS boot floppy (I think there are a couple sites that hand them out, but I'm not sure about the legality) just boot off the floppy, or do "format C: /s" from DOS.Win9x, etc can make a DOS boot floppy from Add/Remove Programs.   ;  I have a similar problem, but I'm trying to upgrade my hard drive firmware through DOS.Windows XP has an option to format a floppy disk as a bootable MS-DOS disk (in the Format dialog for floppy disks). (That might solve your problem for you.) My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive, though, so I need a bootable DOS Flash drive or bootable DOS CD that I can add files to.   