[jabird]

Hello, first post here. I don't usually sign up for forums because I can usually find the answers I'm looking for.

I've followed the "How to install XP from USB" tutorial stickied above, several times now. The cd drive on my laptop recently went out and I'm craving a fresh install of xp so before I go through backing everything up I decided to test the usb stick (SanDisk Cruzer Micro 4.0 GB) which I have used for things like Hirens boot cd and for from usb linux installs with no issues.

After running USB_MultiBoot_10 with my sources folder being located at C:\XP_SOURCES and Multiboot at C:\USB_MultiBoot_10 it copies all the files for ~5-10 minutes, then I restart, change bios settings to boot to USB or simply select USB from my devices list by hitting F11 on my keyboard it sends me to a completely blank screen with the letter j and a flashing cursor, no combination of keys that I press at this time changes anything besides ctrl alt delete to reboot.

Any help is very appreciated, thanks in advance!

EDIT:: Thanks ilko_t!
====SUCCESS==== (RMPREPUSB)
Specified 1984 MiB partition size
XP/BartPE Bootable (NTLDR)
FAT16
Formatted in windows (I know, probably unnecessary) , cleaned and Prepared with RMPREPUSB, Ran USB_Multiboot, tested with QEMU, rebooted with success!

This post has been edited by jabird: 16 December 2011 - 12:34 AM

[ilko_t]

Give it a read:
http://www.msfn.org/...o-boot-from-usb

In short- try other formatting tools and experiment with the various formatting options each has until you find the right combination for your motherboard/BIOS.
Test if it boots as showed in that thread, then use usb_multiboot.

[jabird]

Thank you ilko_t,

I'll do my best to keep this short... After reading the information in that post, I reformatted with PeToUSB (default settings, only FAT16X selected), copied the 'NTDETECT.COM' 'NTLDR' files and created boot.ini file mimicking the one in the link you gave me, restarted and, just 'j'... Ran the HP utility and formatted to NTFS with no other options, just 'j'. Again ran the HP utility but formatted 'FAT' and no other options selected and again I had the same result upon reboot... Grabbed another usb stick (didn't have drivers, windows auto installed generic versions and BIOS detected it as such), Ran the same utilities with the same options as on the Cruzer Micro i started with, all of my attempts so far have ended in the same result.

This being a total of 6 tests I thought it might be possible that I had never done something like this before on this computer. I happened to still have a copy of Universal USB Installer (version 1.8.6.0) and a RIP Linux .iso laying around on my hard drive. So I ran the installer, let it take all defaults, rebooted and HUZZAH boot menu for rip linux.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should attempt writing zero's to my drive as outlined in this post: Installing Windows XP on a laptop which had Linux . Or just attempt the LiveXP solution, but I'm not sure I completely understand the procedures for that method and will have to read through it a couple more times. Undoubtedly wish this method would work for me, it seems very convenient and painless when it works.

EDIT: Downloaded the DSFOK package went the extra mile and wrote 0's to the first 102400 bytes of the stick, reformatted (just with HP format tool), rebooted and, you guessed it, no change.

This post has been edited by jabird: 15 December 2011 - 08:55 PM

[ilko_t]

Try RMPrepUSB, plenty of options to play with, there are other USB formatting utilities mentioned too in the thread above.
Avoid PEtoUSB and HP USB format tool for now.

[jabird]

Thank you again, experimenting with RMPREPUSB now, I managed to get a different result by selecting the NTLDR option, formatting with NTFS and selected the boot as HDD option, cleaned and prepared the drive. Ran USB_Multiboot with no format, set everything up, proceeded with the file copy, tested it with QEMU (with RMPREPUSB) the drive booted that way, giving the result expected so I restarted and this time got a disk read error, so I feel I'm getting closer. Will continue tonight until I'm ready to pass out, will try to update this post as necessary

EDIT:
====SUCCESS====
Specified 1984 MiB partition size
XP/BartPE Bootable (NTLDR)
FAT16
Formatted in windows (I know, probably unnecessary) , cleaned and Prepared with RMPREPUSB, Ran USB_Multiboot, tested with QEMU, rebooted with success!

This post has been edited by jabird: 15 December 2011 - 11:41 PM