Can such a cd be copied onto a hard drive, the drive attached to the computer drive cable, IDE for example, and an install take place, the destination being the other drive on the cable.

I've no doubt it would work with linux (exposing possible cluelessness) but windows?

Specifically I have a laptop which can't be booted from anything but the hard drive. The pc-card slot was destroyed some time ago, and there is no bios option for anything but that.