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Installing Windows XP on a USB Flash Drive
Have you ever went to school or a public location and didn't want to be so restricted on the computer's settings and controls? Well did you know that you can carry a complete copy of Windows XP on a flash drive and boot from it. (With a computer that can boot from USB of course). Here's how:
Ingredients:
Formatting the Flash Drive:
- Legally licensed copy of Windows XP SP2 or greater (CD Required, if you don't have Windows XP SP2 on a disc, you'll need to slipstream a disc with SP2)
- Flash Drive (1GB recommended, 2GB Max ... I'll explain why)
- BartPE
- HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
- PC with 1.5GB of free disk space running Windows XP and supports USB booting
The first step is to format the flash drive. Now note that although we can format flash drives in Windows in the same way that we can format floppies, it will not work in this case because we need a FAT16 file system on the flash drive so it can be recognized as a boot device. That is also why the flash drive can only be a maximum of 2GB due to using the FAT16 file system. So instead, we will format the flash drive using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool. Open that tool (you downloaded it, right?) and select the FAT filesystem and then format the flash drive.
Once the flash drive has been formatted, you must make it bootable by copying the NTLDR file, the NTDETECT file, and BOOT.INI. You can simply copy these from the computer you are working on but they are normally hidden by default. So we must go to folder options and unhide hidden files, unhide known file extensions, and unhide operating system files. If you are unsure of doing this, Google is your friend. Then either copy those files through Windows Explorer or through a command prompt.
Booting from the Flash Drive:
The first thing to do now is to configure your PC to allow booting from a USB device. This is normally done though the computer's BIOS settings. The most important part is to make sure that the USB device is selected to boot BEFORE the hard drive in the boot device priority, or else you will never see your flash drive boot. Also make sure that USB options are enabled, including legacy options. If there is a timeout for booting from USB, set it to the max in order to allow sufficient time for NTLDR to load and the booting process to initiate from the flash drive.
Configuring Windows:
A normal installation for Windows XP takes over a Gig of space, and on a flash drive, disk space is of the essence. So in this case, we will use PEBuilder to create a build of Windows XP plus add in a few applications for the flash drive to make things trimmer and allow more space for the stuff you want the most.
First open PEBuilder and put in your Windows XP disc (with SP2 or later integrated, remember?). You will see a screen similar to the one below. Declare the path to your Windows installation files on the CD. Next, verify that the Create ISO Image and Burn to CD check boxes are NOT selected and then click the build button. PEBuilder will now create the build.
Now, it's time to copy Windows to the flash drive. To do so, you will have to use a special batch file that's included with PEBuilder. Open a Command Prompt window and navigate to c:\pebuilder313\plugin\peinst. Now, insert an empty flash drive into the computer's USB port and then execute the file PEINST.CMD. You will now see a menu appear as shown below.
Type 1 and press [Enter] and you will be prompted to enter the path to the build that you have created. Enter C:\pebuilder313\BartPE. Now, type 2, press [Enter], and you will be prompted for the target path. Enter the drive letter that Windows has assigned to your USB flash drive. After doing so, the menu is updated as shown below. The menu now displays the source path and the destination drive. Type 5 and press [Enter] to install Windows to the flash drive.
Installing Applications:
Now that I have shown you how to create and install a basic Windows build, I want to talk for a moment about how you can add an application to the build (prior to creating it). The PEBuilder program comes pre-configured to support a number of common Windows applications, but does not come with the applications themselves.
The reason why installing applications can be a little bit tricky is because most Windows applications modify the Windows registry. The build that you are creating is basically a collection of installation files, and the build itself does not contain a registry (the registry gets created when Windows is installed onto the flash drive). As such, PEBuilder uses a sort of registry emulator.
If you go to the C:\PEBUILDER313\PLUGIN folder, you will see sub folders for a number of different applications. If you open one of these application folders, you will see that the folder contains an INF file and a FILES folder. The INF file contains all of the information that would normally go into the registry, and the FILES folder stores all of the program's files.
To see how this works, let's install an application that I'm sure most of you are familiar with; Nero. Begin by installing Nero onto the machine that's running PEBuilder, as if you planned to run Nero locally on that machine. When the installation completes, copy all of the files from C:\Program Files\ahead\Nero to C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom\files. In this particular case, the nero burning rom folder is the folder that has been set aside for the Nero application. The Files sub folder is intended to store Nero's system files.
Now, you must take care of Nero's registry entries. To do so, go to the C:\pebuilder313\plugin\nero burning rom folder and open the PENERO.INF file using Notepad. As I explained earlier, the INF file in an application's folder is used to store the application's registry entries. For Nero and all of the other applications that PEBuilder predefines, the INF file is pre-configured. You just have to make a few changes that are specific to your system.
In this particular case, the PENERO.INF file is designed to support both Nero versions 5.x and 6.x. Initially, the lines for both versions are commented out. You must therefore determine which version you have and then remove the semi colon from the beginning of the lines that apply to that version. If you look below, you can see how the two versions are separated.
Once you uncomment the appropriate lines, just replace "Your Name", "Your Company Name" and "Your Serial Number" with your name, your company's name, and your Nero product key. Save the file, and your set to go. The next time that you click the Build button, Nero will be included in the build.
Putting XP in your Pocket:
Now that you have done this, you are ready to take your Windows XP installation with you everywhere you go that has a USB bootable PC available. Enjoy!
Directions and images for this How-To Article provided by SolutionBase.
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Originally Posted by BannanoPeel
