you can always make a bootable floppy disc (
www.bootdisk.com has plenty of images), with CD-rom support, to boot with.
This will allow you to reformat the drive if necessary, and copy files from the CD-ROM to the hard drive for installation.
Although.. having seen the packard bell images, you would be better off if you have a disc for xp home (not the recovery disc, but an installable OS), you're better off installing clean and getting updated drivers for everything.