Bootable XP USB?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ape
  • Start date Start date
A

Ape

I have a ScanDisk Cruzer Blade USB FLASH DRIVE - 8GB.

I want to make it a bootable XP USB drive. I have not been successful
at all, using 'pe2usb' primarily. My Googling tells me that there is
a known problem trying to do this with USB drives over 2GB.

Is that true?
Has anyone been successful?
If so, how? What did you use?

I thought this was a great idea - purpose to preserve my original XP
install capability. I have already had two XP installation CDs fail
from simply sitting on the shelf.

TX

The Apeman
 
Ape said:
I have a ScanDisk Cruzer Blade USB FLASH DRIVE - 8GB.

I want to make it a bootable XP USB drive. I have not been successful
at all, using 'pe2usb' primarily. My Googling tells me that there is
a known problem trying to do this with USB drives over 2GB.

Is that true?
Has anyone been successful?
If so, how? What did you use?

I thought this was a great idea - purpose to preserve my original XP
install capability. I have already had two XP installation CDs fail
from simply sitting on the shelf.

TX

The Apeman
Click to expand...

You should clarify what you're trying to build here. Some possibilities.

1) Your flash device is a WinXP C: drive, and you attempt to boot
WinXP from that C: drive. Via activation, the drive is paired with
one PC (i.e. the OS is not really "portable").

To make that work, the search term is "BootBusExtenders".
Example thread, here.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic116114.html

2) Your reference to pe2usb, suggests what you're doing, is moving
a BartPE (preinstall environment) disc to a USB flash. As discussed
here. It uses a RAMDisk created when it runs, to avoid the BootBusExtenders
problem (USB bus is reset, while pulling files over the USB bus, and
boot process stops). If the files are staged on the RAMDisk, the RAMDisk
doesn't get disconnected when the USB reset happens.

http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10806

I don't immediately see how the size of the device comes into play.
It's true, that FAT file systems, have upper limits on the max size
of the file system, and a 2GB limit certainly exists. If the thing
booting insists on an older file system, you might be stuck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table

FAT16: 2 GB (4 GB for 64 KB clusters)

Be aware, that for storage devices, there are two ways they can be
prepared. With a partition table, or without a partition table.
If you could use a primary partition table, you could define one
partition (the active one), to be slightly less than 2GB, leaving the
rest of the Cruzer unallocated. To start this process, I'd probably
load the USB flash into Linux, use fdisk, and define the partition structure,
as I don't think Windows typically likes to use a partition table there.
Now, the pe2usb tool might not like that. As the intrepid experimenter,
you'd just have to try a few things.

I have a BartPE disc, and I use it so seldom, I doubt I'd ever have
an interest in a USB flash version. I'd only end up erasing it and
putting some other OS on it. I don't own a lot of USB sticks. Of
the sticks I own, one was purposely bought to be small - a 1GB stick,
because a stick at that size, avoids FAT problems. Trouble is, finding
a stick that small now, is more difficult. The average stick for
sale will be bigger than that (bigger stick, can charge more money,
and sneak in a larger profit margin). Using the small stick, is for
cases where the installation tool insists on applying things like
FAT16, to the entire flash drive (and blowing up at 2GB).
The "HP formatter" was an example of such a tool type.

Paul
 
You should clarify what you're trying to build here.
Click to expand...

Hi Paul -

I shud'v known you'd chime in. Thank you for your responses. They
are always well thought out and useful.
What I thought to do - bad idea I guess - was to build a bootable USB
that would not only enable me to avoid the XP install CD, which seems
to wear itself out doing nothing, and replace it with its equivalent
on more dependable USB. I thought I could add folders of copies of
the software installation CD's that I frequently add to a given
installation. They go bad too. For example printer softwares, free
virus checker, free disk cleanup softwares, free burners and players,
etc.

I think I'll begin thinking of doing this with two USB's. A small one
to boot. A larger one for the rest.

Or maybe just forget it.

Ape Man
 
I have a ScanDisk Cruzer Blade USB FLASH DRIVE - 8GB.

I want to make it a bootable XP USB drive. I have not been successful
at all, using 'pe2usb' primarily. My Googling tells me that there is
a known problem trying to do this with USB drives over 2GB.

Is that true?
Has anyone been successful?
If so, how? What did you use?

I thought this was a great idea - purpose to preserve my original XP
install capability. I have already had two XP installation CDs fail
from simply sitting on the shelf.

TX

The Apeman
Click to expand...

I have used the program found at the following link to transfer bootable
ISO files, including Windows 7 onto flash drives. Fortunately the
motherboard/ROM's in my PC's seem to be compatible with installing
directly from the USB port.

http://www.isotousb.com/

With luck your PC's will not be one of those that come up with the
"NTLDR is missing" message as mentioned at the bottom of the web page.

If the program claims success on installing an ISO file to your flash
drive you still need to actually try to use it to verify the motherboard
and ROM is compatible with installing from the USB port.
 
I have used the program found at the following link to transfer bootable
ISO files, including Windows 7 onto flash drives. Fortunately the
motherboard/ROM's in my PC's seem to be compatible with installing
directly from the USB port.

http://www.isotousb.com/

With luck your PC's will not be one of those that come up with the
"NTLDR is missing" message as mentioned at the bottom of the web page.

If the program claims success on installing an ISO file to your flash
drive you still need to actually try to use it to verify the motherboard
and ROM is compatible with installing from the USB port.
Click to expand...


I tried isotousb. It executed without any errors creating hopefully a
bootable XP on my 1GB flash drive. I tried booting up with the drive
on three XP machines - all failed to boot, saying 'disk error'. I
suppose the disk error is for the flash drive.

Oh well.......with an H

Apeman
 
I have a ScanDisk Cruzer Blade USB FLASH DRIVE - 8GB.

I want to make it a bootable XP USB drive. I have not been successful
at all, using 'pe2usb' primarily. My Googling tells me that there is
a known problem trying to do this with USB drives over 2GB.

Is that true?
Has anyone been successful?
If so, how? What did you use?

I thought this was a great idea - purpose to preserve my original XP
install capability. I have already had two XP installation CDs fail
from simply sitting on the shelf.

TX

The Apeman
Click to expand...



XP is not made to be booted from a USB device.

If you Google though you can find the procedure to hack it.

It's quite complicated and the bottom line is that it works quite poorly.


If you really insist on running XP from an external drive,
the only way to go is eSATA
 
I tried isotousb. It executed without any errors creating hopefully a
bootable XP on my 1GB flash drive. I tried booting up with the drive
on three XP machines - all failed to boot, saying 'disk error'. I
suppose the disk error is for the flash drive.

Oh well.......with an H

Apeman
Click to expand...

Oh well it was worth a try. You might want to verify the USB drive is
formatted in FAT or FAT32 rather than NTFS as some systems don't like
the newer NTFS format until after an OS is installed that understands it.

Some motherboards need the older USB compatibility option (or similar
name) turned on to boot from a flash. Usually it's just for keyboards
and mice but some need it to read drives properly during a boot.

Another test if you are still up to trying things would be the freeware
program Unetbootin and have it install a bootable version of Puppy Linux
on the flash drive and see if your system(s) can boot from that. If so
then it's not the hardware issue with your flash/PC but a software
incompatibility of some kind. The Windows version of the program can
download and install Puppy, or other versions of normally bootable
Linux, all in one pass eliminating the need for you to download Puppy
separately. Puppy is small, about 100MB, so the download time is
usually quick unless your stuck on a dial-up link.

The link to the program is: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
 
Oh well it was worth a try. You might want to verify the USB drive is
formatted in FAT or FAT32 rather than NTFS as some systems don't like
the newer NTFS format until after an OS is installed that understands it.
Click to expand...

It is FAT32.

Apeman
 
It works for me, for several years. Read the website
Click to expand...

The website says:
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

Doesn't that mean just a format?

Ape
. The flash drive
contains IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and a number of drivers. Do
not forget instruct the BIOS te start from the flash drive.
Click to expand...

Mine is clean.
De volumenaam van station O is ASUSBU
Het volumenummer is 28B6-1FD8

Map van O:\

23-04-1999 22:22 222.390 IO.SYS
18-07-1999 21:05 9 MSDOS.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 93.890 COMMAND.COM
23-04-1999 22:22 1.416 SETRAMD.BAT
23-04-1999 22:22 35.330 ASPI2DOS.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 14.386 ASPI4DOS.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 37.564 ASPI8DOS.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 40.792 ASPI8U2.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 29.620 ASPICD.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 1.103 AUTOEXEC.BAT
23-04-1999 22:22 21.971 BTCDROM.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 30.955 BTDOSM.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 629 CONFIG.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 68.871 DRVSPACE.BIN
23-04-1999 22:22 272.206 EBD.CAB
18-07-1999 21:05 0 EBD.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 93.242 EXTRACT.EXE
23-04-1999 22:22 63.916 FDISK.EXE
23-04-1999 22:22 6.855 FINDRAMD.EXE
23-04-1999 22:22 64.425 FLASHPT.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 33.191 HIMEM.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 41.302 OAKCDROM.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 12.663 RAMDRIVE.SYS
23-04-1999 22:22 14.764 README.TXT
01-10-2002 18:15 1.024.024 Ghost2K3.exe
28-07-2010 18:46 904 BOOTLOG.PRV
28-07-2010 19:31 162 BOOTLOG.TXT
Click to expand...

I wonder - where did these files come from?

Ape\
 
Ape said:
The website says:
HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool

Doesn't that mean just a format?

Ape


Mine is clean.


I wonder - where did these files come from?

Ape
\
Click to expand...

For the HP USB Formatter, there were several versions. Different
downloads from the HP site.

The one I got, consists of a formatter, plus enough DOS files
to make it bootable. The formatter really wasn't the whole intention
of the software in question. It was to make enough of a boot
environment, so that you could do a firmware update. The
package would also include the programming software and
the firmware file.

By offering it for USB, it solved the problem of updating HP
computers which did not have a floppy drive.

What the HP formatter could not handle, is USB Flash devices larger
than 2GB. It would format the USB either as FAT12 or FAT16, but
didn't seem to have FAT32. If the free DOS they were using supported
FAT32, perhaps that would have been an option as well.

*******
"Bootable USB - for system BIOS update

Creates a bootable HP Flash Disk that can be used to locally update the
video BIOS.

To make an HP Flash Disk bootable, install the "HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool",
HPUSBFormatter.exe. After the Format Tool has been installed execute the application;
by default it is located in c:\DriveKey\HPUSBFW.EXE. Choose to "Create a DOS startup
disk" and select the FREEDOS folder from this Softpaq as the location in the field
"using DOS system files located at". After the format has completed and the disk is
bootable, copy the contents of the DOSFLASH folder onto the Flash drive and follow
the DOSFLASH instructions to flash the video BIOS.

Files included in this folder:
HPUSBFormatter.exe
Readme.txt
freedos\command.com
freedos\kernel.sys
freedos\src\com082pl1.exe
freedos\src\ke2029src.exe
freedos\src\README

Copyright (c) 2005 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P."
*******

Mine seems to be based on sp33221.exe (9,028,248 bytes).

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33221.exe

And the description here, tells you why customers were really
supposed to be downloading it. But it does contain an instance
of the "HP Formatter" as a component part.

ftp://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp33001-33500/sp33221.htm

Paul
 
Read the website. I can it, why should'nt you can?
Click to expand...

Sorry about dat. My 1GB (yes 1GB) flash drive is now bootable to DOS,
with said DOS files available from the flash drive. All except your
large Ghost executable, that is.

Sitting in DOS, ready to install, say W98, won't help me with booting
to XP, or starting an install of XP which is my goal. XP's setup.exe
is not DOS executable of course.
Thanks
Apeman
 
Ape said:
Sorry about dat. My 1GB (yes 1GB) flash drive is now bootable to DOS,
with said DOS files available from the flash drive. All except your
large Ghost executable, that is.

Sitting in DOS, ready to install, say W98, won't help me with booting
to XP, or starting an install of XP which is my goal. XP's setup.exe
is not DOS executable of course.
Thanks
Apeman
Click to expand...

The WinXP has two executables. One works in DOS, one works in a
32 bit Windows environment. Try both of them. (You'd use the 32 bit
one, if you were currently booted into Win2K, and were attempting to
upgrade.)

WINNT32.EXE
WINNT.EXE

A naively constructed DOS boot disk, when used to install WinXP,
will lack good file caching. The file copy phase can run extremely
slowly. Don't panic. It will finish eventually, and after the next
reboot step, the installation will pick up to the normal speed. It
isn't worth the time to fix the DOS system, for improved
performance - it will take you more time to add files and fiddle around,
than you'll save time during the installation. These are the options
I tried with smartdrv here. Smartdrv is not perfect, in that the
cache seems to purge itself at regular intervals, so it slows
down every once in a while. The reason I'm using the large settings
seen in this example, was I was experimenting to see how large
I could make them. It didn't seem to help, to make them this large.
It still suffered occasional slowdowns, while some of the 5000 files
on the WinXP installer were copied.

******* autoexec.bat *******

mscdex /D:MSCD001 /L:R
pause
a:\smartdrv.exe /V 32768 32768 /E:32768

******* end of autoexec.bat *******

And this is my config.sys. The X=A000-CFFF was applicable
on my Asrock VIA based motherboard, for some reason, and
took me a whole bunch of reboots until I worked out the
right range (at least, with these settings, I could
finish the boot OK). My current Intel chipset motherboard,
might need some other settings. The question mark after
DEVICE, causes the boot process to pause until you hit Enter.
I like to view the output, after each step, to be sure
everything is OK.

******* config.sys *******

DEVICE?=HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
;DEVICE?=EMM386.EXE /RAM
DEVICE?=EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=A000-CFFF
DEVICE?=XCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
FILES=20
BUFFERS=20
DOS=HIGH,UMB
STACKS=9,256

******* end of config.sys *******

Since I use that floppy for more than just installing WinXP, it
has stuff in it you don't need. You could try just adding
smartdrv for example, as a first step. Or, not bother at all,
your choice.

So as a non-expert, I find the boot floppy, needed to be
adjusted, depending on the computer it was used on.

For help with DOS, try this site. Smartdrv is listed here
as a topic.

http://www.vfrazee.com/ms-dos/6.22/help/

Paul
 
Ape said:
Sitting in DOS, ready to install, say W98, won't help me with booting
to XP, or starting an install of XP which is my goal. XP's setup.exe
is not DOS executable of course.
Click to expand...

Well, the winnt.exe on the XP CD is a DOS executable. Microsoft
themselves has instructions on how to start XP install from MS-DOS at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307848

As for booting XP from a USB anything, I've never tried it. Last time I
installed it was from a CD created by nLite, which is a pretty cool tool
for creating XP installation CDs, you can integrate things like drivers
and remove things you don't want.
 
I went to http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
and downloaded/installed HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8

The site states: Optionally you can also make the disk BOOTABLE by
specifying a file location. Use the Windows 98 system files available
here. I duly downloaded win98boot.zip which I unpacked to a set of 30
system files plus a cdrom folder containing 6 more files. I see some
of those files in your list, some not. I see nothing that I
recognize would help me with booting XP.

Interestingly, when I execute HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8
specifying the downloaded folder of W98 files, the USB drive only ends
up with only 316KB of three files:

command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys


Make sense? Obviously I am missing something somewhere.
I will be away next two days - funeral for a good buddy dammit.
Cya when I get back.
Thanks
Apeman





wrote:
 
Ape said:
I went to http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
and downloaded/installed HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8

The site states: Optionally you can also make the disk BOOTABLE by
specifying a file location. Use the Windows 98 system files available
here. I duly downloaded win98boot.zip which I unpacked to a set of 30
system files plus a cdrom folder containing 6 more files. I see some
of those files in your list, some not. I see nothing that I
recognize would help me with booting XP.

Interestingly, when I execute HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8
specifying the downloaded folder of W98 files, the USB drive only ends
up with only 316KB of three files:

command.com
io.sys
msdos.sys


Make sense? Obviously I am missing something somewhere.
I will be away next two days - funeral for a good buddy dammit.
Cya when I get back.
Thanks
Apeman
Click to expand...

That is likely the minimum set of files that will work.
Nothing stops you from copying any other files you might
like, if you want to add features. My floppy has a whole
bunch of odds and ends, to suit various usages.

For example, MSDOS doesn't need smartdrv.exe in order to work.
It's optional, but improves storage performance.

I think the FreeDOS minimum file set, is small like that too.
FreeDOS is used on things like Seagate Seatools for DOS, and
is included in the download image. I think that has grown
large enough, it comes on a CD image now. (FreeDOS also has
its own web site.)

Another thing, is applications. MSDOS had an editor, which is
not normally included when you build one of these "BIOS flashing"
floppies. A complete OS with all included goodies would be quite
a bit larger.

If you do a Google search on

command.com io.sys msdos.sys

you will undoubtedly discover what each of those files covers
in terms of the OS design.

Paul
 
That is likely the minimum set of files that will work.
Nothing stops you from copying any other files you might
like, if you want to add features. My floppy has a whole
bunch of odds and ends, to suit various usages.

For example, MSDOS doesn't need smartdrv.exe in order to work.
It's optional, but improves storage performance.

I think the FreeDOS minimum file set, is small like that too.
FreeDOS is used on things like Seagate Seatools for DOS, and
is included in the download image. I think that has grown
large enough, it comes on a CD image now. (FreeDOS also has
its own web site.)

Another thing, is applications. MSDOS had an editor, which is
not normally included when you build one of these "BIOS flashing"
floppies. A complete OS with all included goodies would be quite
a bit larger.

If you do a Google search on

command.com io.sys msdos.sys

you will undoubtedly discover what each of those files covers
in terms of the OS design.

Paul
Click to expand...
I'm back.

Thanks - I agree. What confused me is that I went to all the trouble
of telling HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 to download some
30 files plus a CDROM folder and told HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
- v2.1.8 to load that when it formatted the USB. But it didn't. Why
not?

I do agree that I can load the rest on the USB manually. Just seems
that HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 should have done it.

ApeMan
 
Ape said:
I'm back.

Thanks - I agree. What confused me is that I went to all the trouble
of telling HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 to download some
30 files plus a CDROM folder and told HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
- v2.1.8 to load that when it formatted the USB. But it didn't. Why
not?

I do agree that I can load the rest on the USB manually. Just seems
that HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool - v2.1.8 should have done it.

ApeMan
Click to expand...

If the image, with three files on it, was bootable, then that
is defined as "success" :-)

But to be useful, the MSDOS boot disk can use a few items added to
it. For example, mine has two CDROM packages, intended to allow
mounting a CDROM device. That isn't necessary, when I'm installing
an OS (because I store the i386 folder on the hard drive ahead of time),
but the CDROM access comes in handy in other situations.

I don't use that floppy often enough, to even remember why half the
stuff is on there. Doing a "hard drive install" of WinXP, without
the CD, was an experiment, just to see if it could be done. And it
worked fine. The machine I'm typing this on, was installed that way -
one FAT32 partition was C:, while an adjacent FAT32 partition held the
i386 folder with 5000 files in it, for doing the install. Just
change directory to D:\i386 while in the DOS window, and away it went.
My version of MSDOS, supports FAT32, which is why the two partitions
were FAT32 type (so MSDOS can "see" them during the initial copy phase).

If you don't have the smartdrv.exe thing bolted into your MSDOS,
it might take 2 hours or so to finish the install. The initial
file copy phase, being the slow step.

Paul
 
If the image, with three files on it, was bootable, then that
is defined as "success" :-)
Click to expand...

Well - my download from the link in HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
v2.1.8 to the W98 boot files produced a ZIP file not an image file.
The former decompressed to the many files I mentioned earlier.
That's why I was surprised that only three files ended up on the USB.
The USB does not boot into XP at all. Just DOS.

You indicate that you booted into XP with what you had on your USB.
Did you just copy the content of an XP image file (including I386
folder) onto your USB? And was that sufficient to get the USB to boot
up in XP?

For sure, I am feeling quite stupid right now on all this.


ApeMan
 
Ape said:
Well - my download from the link in HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool
v2.1.8 to the W98 boot files produced a ZIP file not an image file.
The former decompressed to the many files I mentioned earlier.
That's why I was surprised that only three files ended up on the USB.
The USB does not boot into XP at all. Just DOS.

You indicate that you booted into XP with what you had on your USB.
Did you just copy the content of an XP image file (including I386
folder) onto your USB? And was that sufficient to get the USB to boot
up in XP?

For sure, I am feeling quite stupid right now on all this.


ApeMan
Click to expand...

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here.

My MSDOS floppy, only boots into DOS. It has no other magical properties.

But once in there, I can run the setup application in the i386
folder, and start a WinXP installation. When you start a WinXP
installation, the first stage is "file copying", where the
files are moved from the install media, to the new C: partition.
Once that step is complete (and in this case, done while
DOS is running), the system can be rebooted and will then
start running from the contents of C:. Once it does so, it
continues with the installation, until all steps are finished.

Only during the first stage of the installation, is my DOS
floppy running. After that, the hard drive can be used to finish
the job.

<---- First stage, copies files, D: to C: <----
Running "D:\i386\winnt.exe" starts this...
+----------------------------+----------------------------------------+
| New C: partition (FAT32) | D:\i386 (holds files from a CD, FAT32) |
+----------------------------+----------------------------------------+

+----------------------+
| A: my MSDOS floppy |
+----------------------+

*******

You can boot WinXP from a USB hard drive - this requires modifications
to BootBusExtenders, to prevent problems with the USB bus disconnecting
in the middle of the boot process. And the resulting hard drive image,
isn't suited for sharing over multiple computers, because of the
Activation issues that would cause.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic116114.html

You can prepare a WinPE (Preinstall Environment) disc, such as BartPE.
I've used that to run programs, but you have to load the programs
onto the optical disc in a particular way (as it's not a full environment and
has limitations).

The WinXP CD itself, boots into recovery console, which is a DOS-like
environment suited to doing repair work on the hard drive partition.
But this too, is of limited value for general purpose work. You
couldn't run Word or Excel from there, for example.

HTH,
Paul
 
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