Creating an USB bootable Windows XP?

[torekk]

Well, what I want is a normal Windows XP, just on a USB stick. Like you use the USB stick as a hard drive and install Windows on it. My computer does support USB boot, so it should work. It's just that I don't know of a way how to install Windows XP onto my USB stick. My USB stick has 8gb of disk capacity, should be enough.

[Solid_Granite]

I wouldn't... the swap file will wear your USB stick's read/write cycles out in no time at all.

& I've been told it's not possible to install XP on a removable drive, something to do with "memory addresses".

Ubuntu on a bootable usb stick, on the other hand, is easy & useful

[torekk]

Well, I've tried Ubuntu several times, always gives me an stdin error when booting from USB.

[BananasGoMoo]

you can install it but dont expect the flash drive to last very long at all.

[M_B]

You just pop in the USB drive in, as well as the boot disc, and when you get to the XP install menu (assuming you have your BIOS set to default which in most cases puts optical drives first in priority), choose to install it on the USB drive. If you're not sure which drive letter would be the USB drive, then put it in (while in windows) and just look for it under Computer/My Computer.

Do take note that it has to be a suitable format, FAT16 for USB, i think it is, not sure, but i'm sure you can find info on that.

[editline]10:30PM[/editline]

[QUOTE=Solid_Granite;18311401]I wouldn't... the swap file will wear your USB stick's read/write cycles out in no time at all.

& I've been told it's not possible to install XP on a removable drive, something to do with "memory addresses".

Ubuntu on a bootable usb stick, on the other hand, is easy & useful[/QUOTE]

no, it is. it's been possible not long after USB drives started coming out with large enough sizes.

[KorJax]

The USB drive has to be formatted under NTFS actually (by default 99% of them are formatted under FAT32).

Also I wasn't aware that flash drives could get "worn out"

[BananasGoMoo]

[QUOTE=KorJax;18311549]The USB drive has to be formatted under NTFS actually (by default 99% of them are formatted under FAT32).

Also I wasn't aware that flash drives could get "worn out"[/QUOTE]

they dont usually, unless you run windows from them.

they can only do a certain amount of read/write cycles.

[articpenguin]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx6xNaZf40M[/media]
it might help.

[M_B]

[QUOTE=KorJax;18311549]The USB drive has to be formatted under NTFS actually (by default 99% of them are formatted under FAT32).

Also I wasn't aware that flash drives could get "worn out"[/QUOTE]

something i read quite recently said FAT16 but i didn't look ver far into it. and yeah most of them are FAT32.

the problem with formatting USB drives to a different format though is it can kill the drive, and there's no way of knowing whether or not it will damage your particular drive (unless you can find a forum dedicated to that particular thumb drive but the chances of that are like finding a forum for Duracell AA batteries [though the internet can be surprising])

[editline]10:49AM[/editline]

[QUOTE=BananasGoMoo;18312223]they dont usually, unless you run windows from them.

they can only do a certain amount of read/write cycles.[/QUOTE]

i wonder how this could be, it's solid-state, no moving parts.

[torekk]

Yeah whatever, fucked up my MBR after following M_B's method. :saddowns:

Now I have Win XP on my USB stick, but it always crashs on booting.

[GetOutOfBox]

Here use this ([url]http://gag.sourceforge.net/[/url]), its a boot manager, install it on a usb/floppy/cd and select your old os and boot it.

Then use this to repair your MBR in windows (download: [url]http://www.ambience.sk/experiments/MbrFix.exe[/url]) copy to your C:\ (to the root of your drive, so C:\mbrfix.exe) open a command prompt (ctrl+r, cmd.exe) and type "cd C:\" without quotes, then type mbrfix.exe /drive c: fixmbr (if it doesn't work, try replacing c: with 0)

[M_B]

[QUOTE=Torekk;18320455]Yeah whatever, fucked up my MBR after following M_B's method. :saddowns:

Now I have Win XP on my USB stick, but it always crashs on booting.[/QUOTE]

try reinstalling it on the stick, or do Repair and Install. that shouldn't happen.

[torekk]

I've just reinstalled Windows XP onto the same partition, didn't loose any data besides the windows ones. Now I just have two user accounts, one named Torekk and one named Torekk.AMD643500. I don't really care though.

[Seb McMeb]

[QUOTE=M_B;18318252]something i read quite recently said FAT16 but i didn't look ver far into it. and yeah most of them are FAT32.

the problem with formatting USB drives to a different format though is it can kill the drive, and there's no way of knowing whether or not it will damage your particular drive (unless you can find a forum dedicated to that particular thumb drive but the chances of that are like finding a forum for Duracell AA batteries [though the internet can be surprising])

[editline]10:49AM[/editline]

i wonder how this could be, it's solid-state, no moving parts.[/QUOTE]

I believe it's all magnet based, could eventually loose magnetism after it's used enough.

[yngndrw]

Each block in a flash-based solid state drive has a limited number of erase/re-write cycles. That is how they die.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory#Memory_wear[/url]

[url]http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?s=&showtopic=69933&view=findpost&p=480091[/url]

[GetOutOfBox]

[QUOTE=Seb McMeb;18342830]I believe it's all magnet based, could eventually loose magnetism after it's used enough.[/QUOTE]

Nope, a hard drive is magnet based, a portable USB drive is flash-chip based.

[Pixel Heart]

Is there a way to make my PC require a USB flash drive to either be inserted, or refuse to boot?

It would seem nice to have an MBR or bootloader boot from the USB stick, and then continue booting from C:\. So if you take the USB stick out of the PC, it will refuse to boot. What's the best way to go about doing this?

[Dr Egg]

You can do it with Bitlocker in Vista and 7, but you need your mobo to support it (possibly just general booting from a USB stick) and it needs to be Enterprise or higher version of Windows. There will be 3rd party programs as well most likely, but that is the only one i know off the top of my head

[birkett]

Look into WinPE and BartPE (free).

[GetOutOfBox]

[QUOTE=Pixel Heart;18356303]Is there a way to make my PC require a USB flash drive to either be inserted, or refuse to boot?

It would seem nice to have an MBR or bootloader boot from the USB stick, and then continue booting from C:\. So if you take the USB stick out of the PC, it will refuse to boot. What's the best way to go about doing this?[/QUOTE]

Read my first post in this thread, the boot loader I posted is USB compatible I think, and you could probably remove the MBR. Though this in no way secures your files, it just stops anyone without any tech knowledge, if someone wanted access to your files, they could reinstall the MBR on the HDD.

In order to remove the MBR, you have to do some fancy debug codes, its pretty risky.