Fedora 17 new install on a USB connected hard drive.

I have Dell Dimension 2400 with WindowsXP installed, But !! I can't get this Dell to Boot off a CDROM.
by even setting up BIOS to boot off CDROM.

Yes the CD is a Bootable CD.  If you read the CD from within WindowsXP it will read the the files on the CD.

I was thinking about taking hard drive out the Dell and USB connect the hard drive to another Computer and do a resize of WindowsXP and install Fedora on hard drive and setting up the hard drive as a Boot drive , then put it back into the Dell 2400.

The Dell hard drive is a IDE drive and My computer is SATA so I can't put the Dell hard drive in my PC.

Will it Work ????