Installing XP from a usb pen drive?

Soldato
Joined
23 Mar 2007
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Hi guys

Im just in the process of getting myself a new SilverStone ML03 Slim HTPC Case and after reading reviews it seems a tight squeeze when installing a dvd drive with a standard atx PSU. I never really use a dvd drive even on my main desktop machine so i am going to build this htpc setup with the parts from my sig without an optical drive.

The problem is i have windows xp on a cd but just wondered if there is a way of putting it onto a usb stick and install it from there? I see its possible for windows 7 but cant find anything regarding xp

Hope someone might be able to lend me a hand

Thanks again

Liam
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
23 Mar 2007
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Essex
Thanks mate, i have just tried win2flash and it seems to have copied all the xp file from my cd to my pen so i'll give at a go and see how i get on. Thanks for the above link i'll definatly take a look
 
Associate
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9 Dec 2008
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I was just now trying both of these myself for making a WinXP Pro USB install media. "unetbootin" seemed to write a linux boot loader on to the USB. I just saw a message flash quickly that seemed to say that. The system was not able to boot from the USB stick on the target computer.

Then I tried Win2Flash and that worked. It seems to be designed specifically for making Windows install and recovery media on USB. Only thing that surprised me is that the file contents on the USB look different from what's on the CD. But anyway it booted up on USB just like the WinXP Pro CD does.

I didn't try doing an actual windows install from USB as I'm not ready to do that just yet.

So I'm not sure what I did wrong with unetbootin, but Win2Flash looks like a great utility and made to order for Windows installation/repair from USB.

I just chanced upon this thread as I searched on this topic.

Cheers
 
Associate
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So I did a full WinXP install from USB stick (USB stick prepared with Win2Flash). Works great, but I ended up with an installation on D: so I've got D:\Windows. That's slightly annoying but the install method works good.
 
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Associate
Joined
9 Dec 2008
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387
WinSetupFromUSB... at first glance it looks at least as- if not more made to order for this task than Win2Flash. Thanks I'll check that out.

I had just one PATA HDD connected with one partition. When it reached the "choose, create, delete partition" stage, it listed the USB stick first and then the HDD. So I think already then the USB was identified as C: forcing the HDD to D:
 
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