HP TC4400 laptop - no MBR

[ps56k]

My wife's sister has an old HP TC4400 laptop -
a laptop with swivel screen that can act as a tablet.
It doesn't boot - and shows the bootup screen - No System Disk Found

It appears to have a HDD and it tests ok via the BIOS.
There is no CD drive avail inside the laptop,
and I don't have an external one to even try.

SO - I'm going to take the HD out,
take a look, put it back in - try again.

If it still doesn't boot -
then I need to get a cheap USB <--> SATA cable
- connect the drive to my laptop or their other desktop
- see if the disk is really ok, contents ok,
- somehow is really missing it's MBR -

If so -
HOW can I get a new MBR created using a USB cabled drive ??
I've only done it with a local drive...

[ps56k]

well, went and picked up a cheapy USB 2.5" SATA box
and installed the drive -
Connected to my laptop,
It powers up, and is recognized and installed as it's disk model number in
Device Manager.
However, using XP Disk Management, it shows as un-alloc...
So, tried to initialize and it will not take - nothing happens -

guess it's dead -