Installing windows off a flash drive - help please.

[Mr_White]

Hi folks.

Well I've been given the task of fixing a relatives laptop, it's completely screwed over with viruses and is running slower than a Cyrix MII on 16mb of ram.

No problems, just format it and resinstall windows, however, the cd drive is broken, it doesn't do anything, it'll eject, and that's it, it won't spin up, the laser doesn't move, you can't boot anything off it.

So I need to install windows off a flash drive so I can get it working, then he can use an external CD drive or we can worry about replacing the old one.

So what would I need to do this? I've been out of the loop, I used to constantly be fixing computers, but I got sick of it, so I've forgotten some of the stuff I used to know, so any advice would be greatly appreciated, as I need to ideally get this done by tonight or tomorrow, much thanks.


Edit: I've just been informed that you can't install windows off a flash drive, I was sure you could for some reason

Is there any other way to boot and install windows without a cd drive?

 

[Mr_White]

I really wanted to do it tonight without having to go and buy anything, it doesn't look like it's going to be that straight forwards though.

I'm hoping I can fix the CD drive.

 

[Mr_White]

Only full sized ones unfortunately.

I've got some life into the CD drive now, it's doing a few seeks then stopping, but it's something at least

 

[Mr_White]

Not so.

Use - http://petousb.en.softonic.com/ to format the USB stick.
Copy the entire contents of the Windows XP CD to the newly formatted USB stick.
Set your BIOS to boot from the USB stick.
Install Windows.
Remember to alter the BIOS back to hard drive boot after the first setup Windows setup reboot.

I did exactly this just yesterday.
If it doesn't work, post back here, I'll have missed a step in the instructions.

The entire contents from browsing the CD or a copy from command prompt?

Cheers, looks like a bit of light at the end of the tunnel

 

[Mr_White]

Cheers, I'm just copying the XP cd using command prompt.

Is there any specific drive label or settings I should format the drive with?

Thanks for the help

 

[Mr_White]

Apparently Vista has the feature to install off a flashdrive/hard drive on boot, is this correct?

I could always do that I guess.

Edit: Nevermind, I can't do that