Booting a Windows 7/Vista/(XP?) Installation from a USB Key (Tutorial) [Archive]

nir36

29th April 2009, 06:52 PM

The following is meant to save you a lot of time, health and annoyance,
I've done this with both Windows 7 (x86 and x64) and Windows Vista.. didn't check XP.

Instead of burning 9000 bootable DVDs for every new OS/SP that's out... you can just boot your installation from a USB key. thus far, a 4GB one suffices for every operating system i can think of.

let's go.

1. run CMD
2. type "diskpart"
3. connect your USB Key
4. type "list disk" (you will see a list of all available storages)
5. type "select disk #" # being your USB Key drive number.
6. type "clean"
7. type "create partition primary"
8. type "select partition 1"
9. type "active"
10. type "format fs=fat32"
11. after the format is complete, type "assign"
12. exit all cmd windows and copy all files from your windows ISO to the key.
13. load your bios and set the USB key to be the first choice in the booting sequence. the installation should load...

14. cheers.
15. later.

P.S. I have a friend who's trying to write a Toshiba Flash BIOS version which can boot from SD.. this actually means that you'll have an SD card on standby with a windows installation and you'll be able to format your comp easily.
thankfully, if you have a 4GB one, you'll also be able to create a small data image of your comp with a few applications.. and maybe some outlook data/bookmarks.
I don't trust he'll be successful with this.. and not because i distrust his abilities but because this is EXTREMELY hard to do. Hope is always welcome tho.

ibeqa

30th April 2009, 09:02 AM

Please write how you did that. thanks

I'll do but for the moment I'm at work.

Ok, I'm back from work and apparently something is wrong with xda server (page loades very slow) and I can't upload the procedure, so it's going to be a long page.

This procedure worked for my Asus 1000H (I have tried two other methods and failed) and what is more important, I found it on internet, so it's not my procedure.

"Here's a good guide to installing Windows XP on your EEEPC.

Hardware you'll need

1.) A USB memory key. 1GB is recommended, but if your going to use a custom nLite installation of Windows XP, then you can get away with a 512MB one.

2a.) A SD Memory Card. Any size will do, even if you have a 16MB one laying around, that's heaps.

OR

2b.) A Second USB memory key. Any size. (It should be noted I've only tried this with the SD card option)

3.) A Windows XP SP 2 Installation CD.

Software you'll need

1.) Download physdiskwrite. A small utility to use for creating a boot disk for our XP installation.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php

2.) A boot disk image.

http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml

Grab the one called 'MS Windows XP System Setup Disk'.

Step 1: Creating a SD boot disk
Create a temporary directory on your PC and unzip physdiskwrite.exe into this folder.

Using your file compression program (WinRAR, WinZip, 7Zip etc) extract the file "WXPBOOT.IMA" to the same folder as physdiskwrite.exe.

NOTE: The wxpboot.exe is not an archive, programs such as WinRAR may throw an error, but still extract at least 'WXPBOOT.IMA'.

Insert your SD or your 2nd USB memory key into your PC.

Next go to into disk management of your PC by going into:
Control Panel --> Administration Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management

Make a special note of the drive number (not the letter) of your SD card or USB memory key.

Next open a command line and navigate to your temp directory where physdiskwrite.exe is located.

Type: physdiskwrite -u wxpboot.ima

WARNING: It will list all of your drives and ask you which one you want to write to. BE VERY CAREFUL HERE.
You need to make sure you aren't writing to any of your actual hard disks.

It should only take a few seconds. This device becomes your 'boot disk'.

Step 2: Copying XP to your USB memory key
Take your windows XP installation CD and stick it in your DVD/CD drive.

Copy the folder 'i386' to your USB key (the first one, not the one you put your boot disk onto).

If you are using a standard XP SP2 CD without using nLite, it will be around 550MB to put on.
I'd highly encourage anyone doing this to grab nlite at http://www.nliteos.com to cut down the size of your Windows XP size.
Remove unwanted or unneeded utilites and applications to save room. (I was able to cut the CD size down to 325MB without to much sacrifice).

This USB key becomes our 'Windows Disk'.

Step 3: Preparing EEEPC
Insert your SD boot disk into the SD card slot, or USB port if it's a memory key.

Boot your EEEPC and go into it's bios by hitting F2 when it first switches on.

Change 'OS Insallation' to 'Start'. Hit F10 to save and exit.

As soon as the EEPC restarts hit escape to load the boot loader.

At the memu choose either your SD card if you used that, or the USB mem key.

It shouldn't take long and at some point will ask you to hit any key to continue.

When you finaly reach a command prompt you should see:

'A:\'

Type: fdisk

When asked if you want to enable large HDD support just hit Y or enter.

It should show several non-DOS partitions, and a DOS partition named BIOS. We want to wipe all these.

Once you've wiped all three partitions create a new partition DOS partition. Save and exit.

Restart your EEEPC (ALT+CTRL+DEL will do the trick here) and boot back into your boot disk again.

This time at the command prompt:

Type: format c: /s

Once it's formated ensure that the boot linux boot loader is gone by typing:

Type: fdisk /mbr

Your SSD should now be bootable to DOS without a boot disk.

Step 4: Installing XP Pro
Insert your Windows USB memory key into the left hand side USB port . The reason for this is that the boot disk assigns this port as 'D:\'.

Reboot your EEEPC back into the boot disk. Once there:

Type: d:
Type: cd i386
Type: winnt

The Windows XP installation should start. The first part will be windows copying temp files to your SSD drive.
Windows may ask you where the i386 folder is. Just make it's pointed to the 'D:\i386' directory.
When it's finished copying these files and is about to reboot, remove your USB memory key/s, and or SD memory card from the EEEPC as you won't require these anymore.

Reboot your EEEPC. You should see a windows boot loader appear that shows:

Windows
Windows XP Install/Upgrade (Or something to that nature).

Just let it boot on it's own, it will automatically start the next phase.

Now you should see the normal Windows XP installation start. When it asks you would you like to convert your HDD to NTFS, you should say yes.

From that point on, it should be a normal XP installation.
Once it's complete and booted into windows the first time, restart the EEEPC, go into the bios by hitting F2 and change 'OS Installation' to 'Finished'.

It's recommended to install the ACPI driver, and then the chipset driver before other drivers.

Hopefully by this stage your in your fully functioning Windows XP EEEPC!

Just remember if you want to return at anytime back to the original image, you can create a new bootable restoration disk from the included EEEPC DVD.

One last thing. To remove the boot loader at the start of loading windows (where it asks you where you'd like to boot) go to:

Right Click My Computer->Properties->Advanced->Startup and Recovery

Make sure "Windows XP" is your default OS, and untick the "Time to display list of Operating Systems."

The EEEPC will then boot straight into Windows."

Cheers