Can i use my mac mini, w/ virtual PC, and install windows XP

[outlaw20]

Can i use my mac mini, w/ virtual PC, and install windows XP onto an external USB 2.0 hard drive, THEN, take my hardrive to my problematic windoze and plug it in. Insert my recently purchased windows XP sp2 cd and run windows from the external hard drive, reformatting the one in the PC then installing it with the CD. Or is there an EASIER way. My pc is having a TON of trouble. Lots of stuff on it and reformatting is best. ANY help at all is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Ive tried inserting my CD, clicking reformat the harddrive and install, but when it wants to reformat it says i cant because it has installed temp setup files on it. Is there a way to boot straight to the CD and reformat, or am i doomed to take the long route, if any.
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Mac mini:
1.25GHz
1GB of Ram
External 200GB Maxtor Drive
Soon*External DVD burner

[spoonman]

No luck on using VPC. When you use VPC, it creates a hard drive file and installs windoze to that. So the PC will not be able to use it. Your best luck would be to either get a windows 98 boot disk that has the format program, or maybe pull the hard drive from your PC and install it in your external enclosure and reformat it from your mini. Then you should be able to put it back in the PC and install XP from there. And yes, you can format it on the mac with FAT so the PC will be able to see it. Although, it should be able to reformat it on its own since it can't read it if you do format it HFS+ for the mac.....

Good luck!
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Mac Mini 1.42GHz
1GB RAM
80GB HD
Combo optical drive
Airport Extreme/Bluetooth
External 16X DVD+R,-R (Sony DRU-810A) in an ADS FW enclosure
NewerTech MiniStack w/ Seagate 7200.8 250GB HD.

[outlaw20]

WHat i meant was, use my current VPC and insert the windows disk then install it using VPC to the 120GB harddrive. Is that possible?
_________________
Mac mini:
1.25GHz
1GB of Ram
External 200GB Maxtor Drive
Soon*External DVD burner