Installing Windows via USB Stick

Well, since the optical drive (DVD RAM) on my laptop crapped out, and I have no money to buy and external drive, I'm looking for ways one can install windows (specifically TinyXP and TinyVista, since this is an otherwise obsolete laptop) via a USB stick. Now, I've read the articles :1.http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2008/04/30/turn-your-usb-flash-drive-into-a-windows-install-disk
2.http://www.vandomburg.net/installing-windows-xp-from-usb
3.http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.htmlIn the first link, it says that the diskpart process can ONLY be done in vista. Is this correct? I'm guessing that we're putting a vista bootloader/ boot sector with that step, but I'm curious if it can be done with xp. And, more importantly does this work with TinyVista at all? Because AFAIK, in the Tiny___ versions the manual installation (winnt.exe , setup.exe) is removed, and these must be there to start the installation with USB. And if so, is it possible to ADD the winnt.exe or setup.exe via an actual windows install disc?
The second and third links were very informative, but, again, I'm wondering whether it will work with custom installs such as TinyXP (without manual installation).
If anyone has done this before, or can point me to how it's done, please let me know.

i was unsucessful at putting on a usb drive, but put it on a disk.its pretty cool but gets advanced to make functional other than "work" it doesnt actually put your normal windows onto a smaller form. i was thinking "oh wow, finally cut all that garbage out and use what i need" bit more complex than that. its all for diagnostic work on HDD's and xp os's without actually using the stuff your working on. it helped me scan my pc to remove bad stuff, program i used didnt clean it completely but the usbXP was good.others would know best, but i saw it first!

this used to be dead easy with Windows 9x, you just copied the files to a bootable drive after booting and ran setup.exe. with 2000 upwards its not that simple.

SOLVED, for Vista at least (surprisingly). I found out it was a simple matter of copying the DVD contents/ iso contents of TinyVista, to a USB drive formatted in NTFS, then editing the bootdisk.exe in the extracted files to /nt60 (Vista). Now, if only installing XP were that simple...