Linux install

i have a gateway laptop, with working pc card network card and a windows 98 install on it. i want to eradicate windows and install mandrake 9 on it. normally, even my feeble linux newbieishness would be able to do it; just pop in the bootable cds, or if the bios has el torito problems (which it does), rawrite a floppy image and then install from CD. but, the cd drive in this laptop is busted. when i installed windows 98 on it, i took the hardddrive out, put it in another machine, copied the contents of the windows CD to it, then booted from a floppy and installed from the harddrive to the harddrive. the thing is, i can't take ot the harddrive, put it in another machine, and copy anything to it unless i use FAT, because i don't have any other nix machines at the moment. how should i proceed with the install? should i make a fat partition, copy the contents of the CDs to it, then boot from a floppy, and proceed from there, making an ext2 partition in the mandrake setup? the mandrake docs aren't very clear on how to do this. network install? that scares me, esp. because its a pc card. please tell me there are other options.