I wrote this piece back in March 2006 before transferring it to my new blog. It’s quite possible that bits and pieces of this HOWTO are outdated. If any are and you find a solution, then please leave a comment for everyone to peruse.
What follows is a recipe on how to install Windows XP from USB. You can cut right to the case or read about how it happened to me, first. Sit tight, you’re in for a ride!
Case In Point
You’ve got this Acer laptop with a malfunctioning DVD drive. Specifically, you removed it from its bay and now Windows XP crashes when you plug it back in. Knowledge Base article 310664 matches it to a tee.
Provided solution: update to Service Pack 1, or disable DMA in the BIOS. Current situation: running SP2 and blessed with a “user-friendly” BIOS that doesn’t allow you to disable DMA.
Your luck just ran out, but - being the geek that you are - you don’t whine about it. Instead, you come up with this bright idea: let’s install Linux, that’ll work some magic! And so you get Gentoo Linux installed using a home-brewn LiveUSB distribution. And much to your dismay, proper hotplugging implementation for your laptop is lacking. Curses.
So finally, you call the support line to have them collect your laptop for repair. One problem here: you’re betting they won’t like seeing Linux boot up and, hoping to forego additional service costs, it’s up to you to reinstall Windows XP.
One problem here: you don’t have a working CD-ROM drive to install Windows XP off, and from experience you know that Windows XP won’t install from an external drive. Blasted!
Disclaimer
The procedure here is provided without any warranty or support whatsoever. It worked for me and so it might for you. It also might blast you and your laptop to pieces. Some of the procedures described here can wipe all of your data. Thought I’d warn you.
I don’t mean to be inventive here, either. In fact, all the technology has been laid out for us and is readily available. All I’m doing is wrapping it all up in writing. Shouts out to everyone who provided the technology!
That being said, let’s get down to business.
Ground Zero: Ingredients
You’ll be needing ample space on a USB storage device like a thumbdrive or external disk drive. 1 GB of storage will suffice. Possibly, you could access the setup files from a network share in which case you’ll only need a 256 MB thumbdrive, but I haven’t tried that.
Personally, I booted off a 512 MB thumbdrive and put the Windows XP setup files on an external disk drive. So a combination will do just fine, but just make sure that you’ve got sufficient USB ports: all USB devices will need to be plugged in and stay plugged in while we’re booted into BartPE later on!
You’ll also need a bunch of software, including a valid copy of Windows XP. The other software components can be downloaded freely:
Q: Why Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1? I want to install XP!
A: Well that’s exactly the trick, though it’s a bit technical. During booting, Windows resets the USB port and loses your boot device. That’s why an installation from USB normally fails. But by using Windows 2003 Server’s ramdisk feature in the early phases of booting, we circumvent that problem.
Don’t be mislead though: you’ll be installing Windows XP all the same. It’s just that we’ll be using two Windows 2003 Server files from the Service Pack to do it.
You can also perform a Windows 2003 Server installation using this exact same procedure, save that you’ll be needing to update to Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1 instead of Windows XP SP2, below. That’s assuming, of course, that you’ve got a valid copy of Windows 2003 Server.
You will also need an already functional Windows system to prep the USB disk from. In addition, your target system (the one that needs reinstalling) should support booting from USB. Virtually all modern ones do though.
Finally, not all cheaper USB devices properly support being booted from. The BartPE forums have a partial list of ones that don’t.
Step One: Preparing the Windows XP Setup Files
For this procedure to work correctly, you’ll need Windows XP to be at Service Pack 1 or Service Pack 2. Many newer Windows XP CDs already have either one included.
You can check by inserting the CD-ROM and looking at the files in the top folder. There should be a file named WIN51P.SP1 or WIN51P.SP2. If you see either one, fast forward to step two.If there is no such file, or you’ve got a SP1 CD that you would like to update to SP2, proceed as follows:
- Copy the Windows XP CD-ROM to a location on your hard drive. We’ll be assuming
C:winxpcd. I strongly advise you to use such a vanilla CD. Users have reported strange happenings with custom XP distributions. - Download the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Network Installation Package.
- Unpack Windows XP SP2 by running
WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe -x. Note the-xparameter that will allow you to specify a location to unpack to. We’ll be assumingC:winxpsp2. - Integrate SP2 into the setup files by running
C:winxpsp2i386updateupdate.exe /integrate:c:winxpcd.
If your system needs special drivers to operate, this would be the time to include them (called “slipstreaming”). Doing so isn’t exactly trivial and should only be necessary if you, say, require non-standard SATA support. The process is beyond the scope of this article, but fortunately Google is your friend.
Step Two: Prepping BartPE
First we’ll prep the USB drive we’ll be using for booting. This is by far the largest step in the process, though it shouldn’t be difficult for anyone to follow. It requires a functional Windows system.
- Install BartPE. We’ll be assuming that you install to
C:pebuilder. - Unpack PE2USB to
C:pebuilder. - Unpack Windows 2003 SP1 by running
WindowsServer2003-KB889101-SP1-x86-ENU.exe -x(that’s assuming that you downloaded the English version). Note the-xparameter that will allow you to specify a location to unpack to. We’ll be assumingC:server2003sp1. - Create a folder named
C:pebuildersrsp1. - Copy
C:server2003sp1i386setupldr.bintoC:pebuildersrsp1. - Expand and copy
ramdisk.sysby runningexpand -r C:server2003sp1i386ramdisk.sy_ C:pebuildersrsp1. - Start PE Builder from the Start Menu. Point “Source:” to the location of your Windows XP setup files containing SP1 or SP2.
- Make sure the “Output:” is set to “BartPE”. If using SP2: go into the Plugins configuration dialog and enable “RpcSS needs to launch DComLaunch Service First - SP2 only”.
- Hit “Build”.
- When it’s done building, insert the USB drive you intend to boot from and run
C:pebuilderpe2usb -f [drive:], replacing [drive:] with the location of your USB drive. This will destroy any data on your USB drive! The drive shouldn’t be partitioned any larger than 1 GB. If it is, then repartition it using Computer Management in the Control Panel. - Copy the Windows XP setup files to the USB drive (or another USB device if you have insufficient space left). You’ll only need the
i386folder.
If no errors occured in the process, you should now be all set to boot from USB!
Note: it’s possible to use Windows 2003 Server as the operating system to boot from, but I don’t recommend it. Many of BartPE’s included utilities won’t work properly.
Step Three: Configuring the BIOS
You should now reboot and go into the BIOS configuration to boot from USB. Instructions for doing so wildly from system to system, but generally entail the following:
- Reboot the system.
- While booting (before Windows starts loading), get into the BIOS configuration screen by hitting something like F1, F2, Delete or Escape. Hotkey instructions are generally provided on the screen.
- Go to the section that contains your boot devices.
- With your USB drive plugged in, the USB drive should be listed. If it isn’t, your system might not support booting from USB. Assuming that it is supported (as is the case with virtually all modern hardware), promote your USB drive to the primary boot device.
- Exit from the BIOS configuration, saving all changes.
If you’re completely new to BIOS configuration, BIOS for Beginners over at Tom’s Hardware might be a good primer. Be aware though, that you can seriously screw up your system by providing incorrect settings!
Step Four: Booting into BartPE
Assuming that you properly configured your BIOS and your USB device supports booting, BartPE should now load. Depending on the speed of your USB device, this may take a while.
If it isn’t working, then double-check the following before making a scene:
- Is your BIOS properly configured for booting from the USB disk? (Is the USB device listed and does it have top priority?)
- Have you correctly prepared the USB disk in step two? (Restart the procedure.)
- Does your USB stick properly support being booted from? (Try another one!)
Step Five: Prepping the Hard Disk
You need to make sure that your hard drive is partitioned and formatted properly. Especially if you’ve had Linux or some other operating system on it, you’ll need to repartition and format it. BartPE contains DiskPart for disk partitioning and A43 File Manager to format your drive.
If you are sure that your hard drive is set up properly (i.e. it has only run Windows, it contains a valid FAT or NTFS partition) then you can safe yourself the hassle and skip this step.
This procedure will destroy any data on the hard drive.
To repartition:
- From the Go menu, navigate to DiskPart.
- Enter the commands needed to repartition your drive. For example, try the following:
select disk 0(select the first disk),clean(purges the entire drive, essentially resetting it),create partition primary(creates a single partition from the entire disk),assign(assign the partition a drive letter),exit(quits DiskPart).
This procedure will destroy any data on the hard drive.
To format:
- From the Go menu, navigate to the A43 File Manager.
- Right-click on the target drive (e.g.
C:) and click Format. Should be self-explanatory.
Step Six: Launching Windows XP Setup
With your drive all ready, you can now launch the Windows XP setup with a few custom parameters. Let’s assume that the files are available at D:i386.
Plugging in a device now won’t work. Remember that all USB devices will need to be plugged in right from the start while using BartPE.
- Run
D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource. ReplaceC:with the drive you want to install Windows to. - Proceed with the installation. When asked to convert the installation volume to NTFS, answer No. The setup program incorrectly believes that your USB drive (which is formatted as FAT) needs conversion.
The setup program will then silently close, which might make you think that something went wrong. Don’t worry though. Reboot your system, remove the USB drive(s) and – if all went well – you can now finish setting up Windows XP. Congratulations!
All comments are highly welcome. Hope to have helped some of you out!
Hi Roderick - just wanted to say thanks a million for this excellent guide - I got it working nicely after a couple of goes - to fix a laptop with a dodgy dvd drive - exactly as per your example… Worked a treat!
Thanks again
Regards
Paul P
Hello Roderick, this guide is excellent. All was very clear and worked very good. Thank you.
Best Regards.
Everything seemed to work until I try to boot the system when I get the following
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to restart
I do have another USB stick with a DOS boot on it that works fine and is the same make and model as the one I am useing for XP and have even tried useing that one with the same results.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Installing Windows XP from USB, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
Thanks for this wonderful guide, I am going to try your method now!
“Foolproof” you could say
So today I followed your guide by the letter! But It didn’t work, but fortunately I found the sources of the problems.
1. All 4 USB Sticks of mine resisted getting booted from…
Solution: I tried a program named “FlashBoot” (Demoversion will be sufficient) and used a BARTPE-ISO to convert from (you can get this ISO in STEP 2 - Point 8 of this guide,just activate “create iso” or something like that and there you have it).
It worked!
2nd problem:
(Im a tablet-user, so you most likely wont have this problem)
Windows XP wanted to have his precious “TPGWLNOT.DLL” during the installation… I didnt have that because I only copied the i386 folder to my stick!
Win XP does work but… you cant use your pen…
2314257th attempt in progress!
I wanted to write here thanking both you, Roderick, and you Timothy for sharing this information. At the place I work, we deal with custom POS machines, and they do not have either floppy drives or CDROMs, so we have a difficult time re-installing the OS if something goes bad. This is great!
Thank you!
[…] http://www.vandomburg.net/installing-windows-xp-from-usb/ […]
Great guide, a real bacon-saver - thanks loads - i’m using a slightly customised version of this to deploy an image, great for machines without dvd drives.
Hi
I have tried this and got to the stage where to usb stick allows a boot up til I get missing or corrupt txtsetup.sif. I overcome this by copying the file from an XP i386 folder to my usb stick but then get biosinfo could not be loaded error code 18. I could get passed this but editing the txtsetup.sif file but then fails on another file. Has anyone else experienced these kind of issues??. Any help appreciated.
Waheed
pe2usb has been packaged into the bartpe newer release. There is no need to uppack PE2USB in Stpe2 2.. Also, it would be nice to add the note that in BartPE build, add /srsp1in custom line.
Hi,
I want to say thanks for making the guide, but unfortunatly, it does not work 100% for me. For some strange reason everything goes according to the guide, but after I reboot the system (usb key out) it goes back to the file copying portion of the install and if try to select a partition again to install Windows on, it can’t find the files anymore…
Please help,,,
[…] here to read this interesting article by Roderick van Domburg. « Introducing GlassFish, Metro, […]
WOW, EXACTLY what I was looking for and it works!!!!
Thanks so much
Excellent! I have you to thank for my up and running laptop
Cheerz!
Hi Roderick, I just wanted to say thanks very much! Initially, I tried a different method for installing WinXP on my Asus Eee PC and it didn’t work at all. Your method worked perfectly! Happy Xmas
Btw, if anyone’s interested, I used a single USB stick - a 2GB PNY ‘capless’ model that I picked up yesterday. Interestingly, this one was bootable, but two other sticks, including an older PNY 512MB ‘Attache’ turned out to *not* be bootable.
Also, I couldn’t work out how to partition the stick as you suggested, so I just left it as 1.8GB. It worked fine. I read somewhere that anything over *2GB* may be a problem.
I am able to follow your directions until I reboot without the key, I get sent to the file copy screen, and it copy’s, restarts, then goes right back tho the same place, any help will be greatly appreciated.
I like the tut and everything! There is one problem though for me. When I go to boot up the USB drive, it comes up with error 14: ntoskrnl.exe could not be found. I have checked in my i386/system folder on my USB drive a lot of times and it is there! What i386 directory should I load onto my USB drive, the one on my computer or the one on my XP CD? I dd the XP CD. Help please!
E-mail support to RDKamikaze@gmail.com thanks!
I finally got it all fixed, but I’m stuck on step 6. I typed in the same thing for command prompt except for drive X: where it is. It came up in cmd with the whole “this isn’t here” thing but it’s there where I had it on the USB’s iso. I’m lost now…
Why not use HP’s USB flash disk utility to make a bootable flash drive with dos. Copy the installation files to the drive and then run winnt.exe (instead of winnt32.exe). Sounds like a lot less work.
I came up with a way that is slightly less difficult http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html
Nick: haha, installing XP on a Asus Eee PC. The reason I came here in the first place! (Just picked mine up at the store a few hours ago. I found that booting from USB didn’t work well, but booting from the SD card does (if you hit Escape during the bootup and select Boot from SD slot)
I had Hp laptop dv5278ea, dvd drive not working, vista installed, got virus, then wont boot. Had this guide to work perfectly except for one reason, booted up to BartPE perfectly, just that it was not showing the the hard drive of laptop .then had to integrate hard drive drivers downloaded from HP website into the I386 folder with nlite(can download from google,freeware).
Thanks for the Stuff.
These instructions along with the program PeToUSB saved me! I was finally able to install Windows XP with out a CD-Rom.
Here is a simple way which worked for me.nothing else helped me.
http://weblogzz.blogspot.com/2008/01/install-windows-from-pen-drive.html
Ray- you need to copy the files over to your harddrive, because when it reboots to access the files, it cant install windows because the files you need are on the flash drive!
Hello, I did everything as it told me to and it all worked fine until i tried to boot from the usb. i selected the usb stick in the boot window and then when i tried to boot it said
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to restart.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
The solution to the issue where it tells you that a file is missing can be resolved by copying the entire SYSTEM32 folder that BartPe creates onto your USB. I had the same issue as you did and that did it for me.
This is to Stephan who said:
-
Hello, I did everything as it told me to and it all worked fine until i tried to boot from the usb. i selected the usb stick in the boot window and then when i tried to boot it said
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to restart.
Does anyone know how to fix this?
-
Stephen or anyone, is there a way to get around this problem me and a couple others are having?
-
Also, are we speaking of “installing XP onto Hard Drive from USB OR are we speaking of “booting windows xp from USB flash drives”
-
Thanks in advance.
I want to answer to the problem:
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to restart.
are some posibilities
1. u did not create a bootable flash drive
2. your flash drive cant support booting from.
3. your system did not suport booting from USB
try find answers about this points and come back.
if u read the entire solution and coments u can understand that . Try other flash drive or “restart procedure”.
And i was almost forget -
THANKS RODERICK
i have problems with my dvd drive from laptop too. Is an excelent guide. I’ll try it too.
when i go to install xp, after i choose “no” to the NTFS format, i get an error that says there is no system partition found? any ideas?
Thank you, saved my old laptop with malfunctioning dvd drive.
Tried with both a IBM T43 and IBM X61s, but no luck!
I was using a USB hard drive and correctly followed all the steps. Got “No Operating System Found!” message while booting from the USB hard drive. Any ideas?
i followed these steps. did the boot menu, and got the 2 files from server 2003. and created the bartPE.iso file.
but i still have a proble. when i boot it says operating system missing. my bartPE file was 78,386 kb.
is this what u guys got.
Roderick, thanks a lot for this guide. I’ve been trying to make a fresh install on a tablet PC without a cd drive, and your instructions have been quite useful. I just want to add something to your guide. I came across the same problem that Timothy, the solution for that is to add the :all parameter to step six. So the correct line for installation would be:
Run D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource:all
Otherwise the tablet pc components are not installed.
Now my tablet pc is working perfectly.
Thanks Roderick!!!!
Hi, I have the same or similar problem of REY…
The usb key boot, i can copy all the stuff with these commandas:
D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
I put all on a primary partition of the disk (the other space is unpartitioned for then install linux)
When i reboot, without usb key, start a bluscreen of windows installation i do it and after setup and 15 pc reboot, but surprise i see again the blue screen of windows install.
I follow all the steps, what’s wrong? Could you help me?
Thanks to all. Great Roderick!!!
I have a flybook v33i
i have the same problem as Ray and xilvio any help would be appreciated plz.
hi there..
Pretty good instrucional manual.
Just was following as you told.But i got this error while booting from USB
“NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart”.
Could you please help me out with this. I have the following in my USB flash drive:
I386
bartpe.iso
ntdetect
ntldr
winnt.sif
My flash drive is of 2 GB capacity
Rod,
can you be so kind to let me know if there is an option to install Windows XP to USB drive and be able to boot Win XP from it
Thanks
I had issues with this with my 4G U3 flash drive, until I
1) Removed the u3 partition
- in windows, assign a letter in disk management to the 5M U3 partition. Open the drive, extract the removal program to a disk, and run it to remove the U3 contents and delete the partition
2) Created a 1G FAT partition, in Linux with fdisk, and formatted it with mkdosfs -F 16
Then it worked.
Great instructions! I did exactly what you instructed and it worked well… after spending a week trying to revive my laptop hard-disk I feel relieved. Thanks a lot…
Thanks. This was excellent. Worked very well. I had a problem of installing XP onto a PXI controller for measurement and automation. Used your step by step guide and got XP installed.
Your tutorial is the best! , Thanx .
Hi. I tried installing Windows using pendrive, but it didn’t work for me (I didn’t try kevin’s idea with reparitioning the pendrive, mine was 2GB). Instead i borrowed (and now even bought one) an IDE/SATA > USB adapter, and connected DVD drive form my desktop. Works like a charm. And since you’re using this guide (therefore have no working cdrom), it will probably come in handy anyway.
Best regards, Michael.
Excellent, except (for me) very important notice from:
CJ, on December 2nd, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Works wit Canyon 256MB USB 2.0 and HP laptop nx5000, but not with industrial PC with Phoenix AwardBIOS (boot from USB HDD can be set).
Any idea?
TNX
I had a missing plugin.ocx file. Is this important?
all hail Roderick!
Awsome guide! Just one request… can you post a link to the ramdisk.sys file from the 2003Server SP1 instead of the entire SP… M$ site really slow took 2.5 hours to download it.
I encountered a problem while trying to run C:pebuilder3110pe2usb -f [drive:]
when I hit run, I always get the error message
USB target drive set to “I:”
Checking drive “I:”
Checking files…
Error: File “C:pebuilder3110srsp1ramdisk.sys” not found!
I’m not sure if I copied ramdisk.sy_ correctly, because I ran
expand -r C:server2003sp1i386ramdisk.sy_ C:pebuilder3110srsp1
but the file wasn’t copied. So I manually copied it to the location.
Does anybody know, what seems to be the problem?
Thanks for the help…
same problem as Rain, Ray and xilvio.
keeps restaring the blue screen installation keeps asking bout partition, then restarts back to the same install screen any help would be greatly apreciated.
I managed to get BartPE working, but now I got a new problem.
When I enter D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
I always get the error message: Setup could not locate help file winnt32.hlp. Help is not available.
However, I found winnt32.hlp in the i386 folder. Does anybody know, how to fix this problem?
Hello, from Spain.
Thanks for the tutorial. It really works in my COMPAQ PRESARIO 2500.
The first time I follow the tutorial, it didn’t work. But, the second time I payed more attention and worked fine.
Thanks again.
same problem as Rain, Ray, xilvio and vdChild - does anybody know how to sort this out? cheers
Just like Ray, I am having the same problem. I had booted from the USB drive, ran the command to initiate the first instance of Windows XP setup, then restarted the computer. The installation process started, copied files to the hard disk, then restarts. However, upon rebooting, it just boots into the same screen over and over again.
I had even copied the installation files from the USB drive to the hard disk manually, then restarted. Same problem.
Absolutely great tutorial!!! Installed XP on my Latitude D410 from a pen drive without any problems.
Unfortunately, I had the same problem with the reboot and Windows XP Setup showing up again and again. I used another method instead and it worked on the first try:
http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html
(this guide was previously post here by Nick)
Hi guys ,
I have made my install as the instruction manual was but i’m allways booting into the first stage setup again and again what shall i doooo please hheeeeeelllppp
[…] Roderick van Domburg’s Blog » Installing Windows XP from USB […]
Thanks for the guide!! Everything worked until I had to enter the windows XP key. Since my xp disk is an OEM version (Dell) I do not know the key. Any way to find out or workaround??
Your help is very much appreciated
I got the USB to boot on the computer that does not have a CD ROM. To the BartPE screen and menus. I am not a windows guy. What do I do next to re-install windows xp on the laptop computer. I do not care about anyting on the laptop. I just want to re-install windows xp, the laptop does not bootup now.
Your guide was great for getting to point of booting on the USB drive with BartPe.
Thanks for any help
Thanks a million for this guide.
Just would like to add that if you start BartPE in a notebook and the hard disk doesn’t show up, try to disable SATA in the bios. Worked for me in a hp pavilion dv2050us.
–
Great guide. worked perfectly until reboot after it had finishe copying files to the HD, then i got the message operating system not found.
3. Unpack Windows XP SP2 by running WindowsXP-KB835935-SP2-ENU.exe -x. Note the -x parameter that will allow you to specify a location to unpack to. We’ll be assuming C:winxpsp2.
Where does the “-x” come from ?
When I downlod it to my desktop and unpack it it does not give me an option for the install to location.
Hello,
Excellent guide, and sincere thanks for it. But i have a little problem: when Loading RAMDISK Image finishes, the bartpe enviroment starts loading, and after two sec i receive this err:
“Setup cannon load ntoskrnl.exe
Error code is: 4
press bla bla.”
u guys have an idea of whats this about?
any suggestions?
thanks u in advance.
Thanks a lot for this great gude - everything worked just fine!
The only problem I had was that i couldn’t partition my USB stick (4gb) and so I couldn’t format it with FAT. I tried with NTFS instead and it seems to work just fine!
Tomi
hi,
the guide is really nice, but i have a question before installing windows:
can i use the repair function/console, which is included in the xp setup program? because i need just this console to repair my xp and i dont want to install a new one.
and one more: the last step when i run
D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
There’s a failure:
“D:[backslash]i386 refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. Check to make sure that the disk is properly inserted, or that you are connected to….”
What drive is ment with drive D? I know that D is the USB device.
i hope that so. can help me
Absolutely fantastic guide!
I got asked to fix a laptop as a favour, the optical drive is dead (or the IDE controller), and it also has no floppy drive… so that left me with Ethernet or USB
I don’t have USB optical drives, nor USB floppy drives… I hate laptops lol, so why I have these!
Anyway, I *tried* PXE booting, I went through all the rigmorol of setting up a TFTPD32 DHCP server and booting with syslinux and… man, what a mess about…
I probably could have got the net install to work had I known to use switches on winnt32…
Oh well, USB is a FAR easier solution if I need to do this again. I’m making an image of the fully installed system compressed with Acronis TrueImage which should be about 3.5GB, then I’m going to put the pebuilder folder together with the backup, adding the Acronis PE plugin.
Hopefully a 4GB flash drive will work… I used a 2GB PQI IntelliStick (in case there are different models, the USB connector slides out, it’s about 20mm x 13mm with the connector in) and it worked fine
Not working at all for 64bit winxp version. Layout.inf file not presest. What about 64bit ?
Got it. 64bit is not supported by bartPE.
This worked first try.
Thanks for the awesome tutorial!
Awesome tutorial, worked like a dream!
Thanks for sharing.
I got the USB drive all prepped up. No errors in that. I am trying to revive an old D400 lappy. The USB is not booting there. So I thot I wud try it on my brand new M1330. Changed the boot sequence, etc. It doesn’t boot to the USB there either!
Am I missing something simple and obvious?
dude..you are a hero!
thx alot
Dude: you rocks. Question tho:
Can I use this procedure to reinstall or repair a windows XP that has a newer version (SP-2) than the windows CD?
I am having a couple of problems: 1) can’t download the windows xp pack; and 2) creating a slipstream cd is an incredible hassle. Seems like it would be much faster to create the “slipstream” cd on the thumbdrive and install from that?
Any suggestions?
Update : I went to my bios and it does not have a setting for a usb drive….only removable is a disk drive. My MB is maybe 2 years old so not sure why it doesn’t.
I managed to get BartPE working, but now I got a new problem.
When I enter D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
I always get the error message: Setup could not locate help file winnt32.hlp. Help is not available.
However, I found winnt32.hlp in the i386 folder. Does anybody know, how to fix this problem?
Fresh - I just encountered the same problem! My solution was actually spelling! I’d missed a character out (tempdive I wrote) and I guess it searches for help for that command it can’t find!
I’m off installing now!
Hope that helps
Googled here and I got exactly what I needed. Followed the instructions and now my friend has a laptop with Windows XP on it again.
Thanks a million!
I have been all over the net trying to find something like this! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with all of us! You might try to say all this information was available, but obviously it took more smarts and patience than I (and many others) had to get it all put together and making sense. Once again, THANK YOU!!
Great. I wish i’d known about this earlier, would have saved me a lot of time and energy.
Just a suggestion, put point 1 of step 6 all on one line, I missed the last option the first time round.
Also, in the bios setup, it could be listed under harddrive, and not have USB as a separate listing. I only realized this when a friend told me to plug it and check under the harddrive boot sequence. There it lists my USB drive as a hdd.
Rain, Ray, xilvio, vdChild, AFX, TGF… in step six
D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource replace with
D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C:
Hope that helps, this worked for me. Roderick, great work!
Thanks very much for the very helpful guide! Has helped me a lot with my laptop with a broken cd drive!
Thanks a lot! This is convincingly working.Hope you post a tutorial for Installing Linux OS from USB.
also this one is very easy
I am sorry…. this one: http://akhyal.spaces.live.com/
Roderick,
I just wanted to say THANK YOU!! I’ve been killing myself trying to find something like this for at least a few weeks now and I’ve tried pretty much every tutorial I could find.
Thanks again, this tutorial worked beautifully and the install went flawlessly!!
Berge
After a few minor hiccups and problems managed to work everything out using the directions above!!
Bumped into the “Bart PE” doesn’t see any hard disk - and solved this with the recommendation above of changing the SATA setting in the BIOS.
Thanks so much.
Thanx very much! With your instructions, I managed to install a Windows 2003 Server from a USB pen drive into a Proliant DL360 G5 without buy an optic cd unit. Thanx again!!! It works really ok!
This guide seems to work for many people, but unfortunately not for me. When I start booting with the fresh set USB drive from Step2 I get the following error:
Pen Drive Without Operating System. Remove Pen Drive and Reboot. Operating System not found.
Also the “pre-booting” is very slow, when the USB stick is plugged.
I also use an ACER laptop (Extensa 3000 Series) and the DVD-Drive is out of order.
I use a Kingston Data Traveler (1GB). In my desperation I did a linux-debian USB/Network boot before an installed this one, so maybe this could lead to this error? I copied the i386 folder to the USB drive manually per copy&paste (I just copied the whole folder, not the content directly to the USB top-folder - could this be the error?
USB-Booting is supported by my BIOS and the USB stick is visible in boot options.
I hope someone can help me!?
I’m using a Kingston DataTraveler 2GB with an IBM Thinkpad X40 and it’s not working for me either, same problem as Roman, though I’m not getting an error message, just a black screen with a flashing underscore. Perhaps these Kingston usb sticks simply don’t work with pe2usb?
Went very fine for me
Your method works but for step 2 I used the HP flash format tool to format 512mb sandisk thumb drive and to copy win98 boot disk files. I also had to copy smartdrv.exe Then copied i386 folder, mine was 450 mb, to the thumbdrive. But this did not work at all when I used a 4gb thumbdrive. wierd.
This worked really well and rescued me from an otherwise expensive situation, just wanted to say thanks!
[…] A note to myself http://www.vandomburg.net/installing-windows-xp-from-usb/ […]
For those having to wait for downloading the Windows 2003 Server Service Pack 1, I highly suggest using PeToUSB. No need for a 330MB download.
Other than that, everything worked flawlessly.
Thanks!
you are a lifesaver!!! thank you so much. This works wonderfully.
Thanks a million! works great for the Everex Cloudbook!
My usb drive is the I drive, but when I run C:pebuilderpe2usb -f [I:], it kept asking me to format my G drive. does anybody know why? Thanks.
Muchas gracias, thanks a lot,
After trying lots of methods, this was the only one that worked, my pc is a averatec 4100 with a bad cd-rom and the usb that I used is a 2GB flash voyager.
Again thanks a lot.
For all,,, If you have some trouble making bart-pe try again at least 3 times.
mike, take the brackets off the drive letter:
C:pebuilderpe2usb -f I:
And Roderick, THANK YOU! Thanks to a small form-factor PC with no CD or DVD drive, nor space to put one, this was the only option I had when the hard drive needed XP put on it.
Thanks, Patrick, it worked, now i got another error, when I reboot from usb, it’s kept saying media test failure, check cable. do you know why?
Worked perfectly. Many many thanks!
[…] akhirnya setelah bertanya pada eyang google,… ketemu jg jawabannya,.. jawabannya ada disini ne […]
[…] do the trick and can be run from a USB flash drive. If you want to reinstall Windows you can follow these instructions to do it from a USB flash drive, assuming you have access to another computer with a working […]
[…] […]
Which I386 folder do i copy? the BartPE one???
For those having this problem:
When I enter D:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
I always get the error message: Setup could not locate help file winnt32.hlp. Help is not available.
However, I found winnt32.hlp in the i386 folder. Does anybody know, how to fix this problem?
I struggled with it also, but found a simple resolution: Reboot your computer after formatting your hard drive and try again.
When I tried it from the first boot, my hard drive was identified as drive D: and the USB stick was drive C:. Upon rebooting after the format process was complete, the hard drive was listed as drive C instead of D. My installation then ran great.
Hope this helps someone.
Does anyone here get a reply from the author when you have problems? Just curious why he would have a reply box and not post his answers from a few folks here who are having trouble.
Or maybe it is only what he stated…for “comments” and not questions.
@fish: here’s the author
I am reading all of your comments diligently and really appreciate them. It’s been two years since I used this thing myself however, so other commenters are much better equipped to answer your questions than I.
i have an acer laptop with a spoiled dvd drive nice coincidence…
so i have 2 partitions on a comp and 1 is a 137 gb partition with a lot of important data and 1 10 gb partition…
how do i install on the 10 gb without losing data??
Two problems initially.
First, PEBart would not boot from the USB device; turned out that that USB drive was not good for booting…tried another and it worked fine.
Second, PEBart could not install the network. I had to get the network driver for the computer in question and place the driver files (as a subfolder) in the PEBart directory driversnet.
Once those were fixed and PEBart booted with network, I mapped a drive to a shared DVD with XP SP2 on it and installed from there.
Thanks.
Amil
Here is an alternative way to install windows using usb: http://www.jcmiras.net/surge/p96.htm
Hi Roderick,
I have tried your solution on my Acer Aspire 3000 and it works like a charm.
It is probably a problem of BartPE, but the DISKPART tool does not work. So, I have included the “Swiss Army Knife” to manage my partitions. Formatting from A43 did not work either, but this was circumvented with the FORMAT command line tool.
Another tip, can be useful.
Create a file, named installxp.cmd in the root of your USB stick.
Add the lines
format c: /fs:ntfs /q /v:label
:i386winnt32.exe /syspart:C: /tempdrive:C: /makelocalsource
The “Diskpart” command now needs to be typed in the Run… area. It is no longer in the menu. It still comes up as a command windows and the commands as shown above are the same.
Works like a charm, for usb sticks larger than 2gb follow instructions on this link:
http://www.ubcd4win.com/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t9668.html
once you boot with bartpe, go to command promp and type the first line of member ArVie’s code to format hard drive. Then locate the i386 folder with the windows files and enter the second line of his code. Making a file like he says ended up not working, so just do what I did and enter commands manually in command prompt.
Bty, if you use something like isobuster to extract installation files from iso, make sure you only select extract and NOT “extract raw” or anything else for that matter otherwise you will get an error in bartpe and will be like wtf.
One last thing, you must use windows sp2 for bartpe, sp3 will not work, but this is only for bartpe. You can install sp3 but you need to use the bartpe sp2. Installation is no different.
Correction 2 posts above: in isobuster select “extract to and current to user data”….”extract to” and “extract raw” both lead to errors in bartpe…sry for the mistake
Thanks for this amazing article, if only I found it sooner!
Thanks again!
This is an EXCELENT GUIDE, THANKS A LOT RODERICK, THANKS for the comments guys, now I can install Windows XP in unattended mode and don’t have to burn a new cd every time I make a change in my answer file. By this method the installation process completes quite quicker than usual, because the copy procedure is completed in Windows not in DOS. It works also booting from cd by BartPE CD or UBCD and starting the installation from USB flash drive.
GREAT. I was looking for such a solution for a long time.
Roderick,
Thank you for this great guide! I was able to install Windows XP with SP2 network installation on an IBM ThinkPad X60s, which has no CD-ROM drive, using a 2gb Sandisk Titanium Cruzer flash drive. I did not run into any problems at all.
Thanks again!
Step 2, point 11, could you be more specific on how to copy these files over, do I just copy the i386 folder over? do I go into the i386 file an copy the folder contents from there? Or is it just the i386 folder? Do I still need to copy the other folders of the xp disk?
When I finish doing everything I get a ‘missing iastor.sys’ error when trying to boot from my usb stick. Anyone got any advice? I might be doing it wrong.
Thank you for this guide, worked like a charm.
J***:
just copy the i386 folder (with everything inside it) to the your pendrive. So you will have 5-6 files and the i386 folder in the root folder of your pendrive, and ~500G stuff in the i386 folder.
No other folders are required from the install CD.
The iastor.sys is required for installing onto an intel RAID or AHCI device. Disable the RAID and AHCI functions in the motherboard’s BIOS, rebuild your BartPE without adding any 3-rd party drivers and try again to install onto a pure ATA/SATA disk
BR
Every time I try to boot my laptop using BartPE the message c:system32ntoskrnl.exe file missing or corrupt please reinstall this copy.
I’ve tried anything but until now the message still the same.
Anybody,Pls help me……
[…] http://www.vandomburg.net/installing-windows-xp-from-usb/ […]
I had some trouble with booting from USB stick - it worked fine for me at first, but after I accidentely formated my stick and not my hard disk I had a hard time to make my tablet PC booting from the stick again (of course AFTER installing BartPE on my stick again
Anyway, after some more research I found a forum
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=13784
that helped me create a bootable stick again…finally
Saleh98: this is because your laptop is still booting from the HDD (C:). Check that you set the pendrive as the first boot device and enabled booting from USB devices in the BIOS.
Also check that your pendrive is capable for this task:
http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10806
For the “Remove disks or other media. Press any key to restart” problem:
In the BIOS, set the “USB Mass Storage Emulation Type” (or similar) to “All Fixed Disc” (or similar)
thanks for sharing
not working with me.. it says insert a bootable disk
Hi everyone,
Did anyone get an error message saying, i need at least 500mb to install windows and i cant continue?
I suspect, it has something to do ntfs or sata.
Please answer.
Bart, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!! I have an Asus eee PC with no optical drive, and two separate internal drives (no idea why) - one is 4gb, the other is 8gb. By default XP Home is installed on the 4GB drive, and as you could imagine, after installing service pack 3 and other XP updates, it was completely full and choking! Thanks to your awesome guide here I was able to format both drives and put XP on the 8GB drive and live happily ever after!
** I meant RODERICK! Thanks big Roddo!!
Works awesome! Thanks!
For me it stopped on the pe2usb.. but it worked this:
http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html#comment-673431523311546137
thanks & good luck
[…] Installing Windows XP from USB __________________ […]
On step 2, Item #5: I followed the instruction:
Copy C:server2003sp1i386setupldr.bin to C:pebuildersrsp1.
However, there was no setupldr.bin in the i386 folder from the server2003sp1. There was a setupldr.ex_ file instead.
What do I do? Please help me.
This guide is awesome…used it a year back and using it now again. Thanks a lot.
I guess it’s not working with my flash drive. Can someone let me know what flash drives work for them? I don’t want to keep buying flash drives as a hit and miss.
Thanks,
Great guide! Majorly handy when trying to install XP from USB onto an asus eee pc.
Note: More information/instruction is needed on how to format a drive from a usb dongle if for some reason a user cannot get diskpart to work in bartpe (Which apparently is standard) using an HP usb disk drive utility and fdisk I was able to format a partition big enough to get XP onto the machine and format everything else.
Thanks though!
MORE INFO!!!
Regarding HD prep. diskpart will NOT function in bartpe, this is normal.
You need to download something like ultimate boot disk and use the cute partition manager to clear your drive (especially for an asus eee pc!)
Ultimate boot cd
I get the error “MBR Error 1. Press any key to boot from floppy…”
Can anyone tell me what’s wrong? I’m completely lost, I did everything correctly.
Great guide. If you have problems, it is a good chance you skipped a step. Thanks for the guide! Diskpart does work.
—– for DUAL BOOT USERS —-
i’m installing Windows XP in a MSI Wind (subnotebook without cdrom drive) and i wanted to have a dual-boot setup
this is what i did : i created a 10G partition for my windows xp install and did this tutorial …at the end it didn’t wanted to boot windows xp install (the bootloader wasn’t written, and i was still seeing GRUB)…so BOOT into your linux and add an entry for windows xp MANUALLY to boot the install…after the first text-mode install it’ll rewrite your bootloader (no grub) and you’ll be able to go on with your install as normal…
in the end you’ll have to boot some mini linux distro from usb or something to restore your grub boot (with both entries in it)….