How can i install win xp using a Usb drive.

I have option in my BIOS to enable booting through Usb mass storage devices. So i was thinking of copying all the installation files into that pen drive, however i can't get the exact procedure.

It would be great if any of you could help.

Thank you.

Hmm... i think i posted it somewhere..

here you go...

get HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool from the internet... (google)

download win98 startup disk image (google)

extract image and put it in the folder...say c:\boot

launch HP pendrive utility.. select the option...create boot disk give path of the files extracted from win98 startup disk img say c:\boot

format and your pendrive is bootable...

(if you need to take backup from c: drive which might be NTFS get NTFS4DOS from avira website... install and go to folder ...pick ntfs4dos and chkdsk.exe from the folder it installed to) if HDD is ready to be formatted ... no access req then you can skip this step..

now transfer i386 folder from your xp CD to pendrive which is formatted and made bootable in earlier step...

(Here if you wish to automate installation then a good thing to do is to write a winnt.sif file google to find a sample and replace your values with default save it in i386 folder) otherwise you can skip this step...

restart and boot from pendrive ... you will come to a command prompt... say c:\ your pendrive... change your directory to c:\i386\ give command winnt.exe (dos setup exe for windows xp) it will launch the setup from there its pretty much the same as installing from cd...

One thing it will be awfully slow with pendrive because of smartdrv.exe missing to do a faster setup you need to get smartdrv.exe and himem.sys and config.sys which are from dos version... or from win98 computer and put them on pendrive... launch smartdrv and then winnt.exe (This step is optional not requirement) as once the system reboot after copying files.. in xp setup speed pretty much ensures ... if you have time to spare then why not forget the smardrv



Peace

SauravR