[htc]

Nerevar, on Mar 15 2005, 10:21 AM, said:

The possiblity is there, but how to do it without the floppy........
Nerevar
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The above mentioned "Flashboot" is in a very primitive form/phase and can only create "single boot" flask sticks. A multiboot option to allow setup diff. Wndows XP/2k/2k3 is not there ... even a single boot to setup win xp in "no emul." mode is also not allowed...

So, the possiblity is NOT there!

[Leith.Jones]

that flashboot program is junk, I can do better without.. so far i have been able to install windows 2000 to my flash drive and boot from it, i'm working my butt off trying to get a PE working on it, but no luck so far, i got it to boot to dos and win98 and i had slackware 10.1 (no X11 mind you) but i really want a PE or ERD to work on it, that would be awesome

P.S. a 1 gig stick

[Leith.Jones]

multiboot can likely be made possible with a specialized boot loader, like if you were to throw LILO on there.. I'm actually gunna try that with the ERD commander files, I doubt it, but if it works it works right?

[KenOath]

Has anyone been to the 98Lite sight lately, at the bottom of the page they show
you Mini-windows98 booting from a 16mb flash-drive.
Although the flashdrive is'nt connected to a pc.
I wonder if they could offer some advice at all.

Iv'e noticed in the bios options of a lot of computer where in the order in which the
system boots the drives - eg: floppy,H/D , CD-rom there is usually also a 4th
option that says boot other devices, I wonder what other devices could be booted?

98Lite.com

The 98Lite sight also claims to boot OS's from flash-drives.

Quote

We can take your program or concept from the desktop phase to a dedicated compact flash drive or similar storage that is ready for customer distribution in just a couple of weeks. 80% of our projects fit on a 32MB flash drive, many smaller!

Our experience includes: Web kiosks running IE, Opera and Pheonix, Multimedia Set-top-Box - multimedia, streaming TV and Web enabled, Data logging, MP3 jukebox. We offer BIOS customisation, and OS protection and encryption to prevent reverse-engineering

The key here of course would be bios customisation.

This sight here looks as though they have operating systems booting from your
everyday usb flash-drive too!

OS on a flash-drive

[podrik01]

Yeah but that's 98, most of us are looking for a way to get XP on there which is a NT OS so a little different :S

[pverissimo]

Here goes an easy way to create a bootable usb flash.
This utility formats the ush flash creating the boot system from a DOS diskette.

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hp...load/20306.html

Paulo

[jaclaz]

Just to keep information consistent, here is a similarly realted thread, where I posted a link to my small tutorial on how to make USB bootable.
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=26612&st=70

Paulo, I see this is your first post, welcome on the board, but take your time looking around and searching before posting
(that link has already been posted many, many times)

jaclaz

[Sonarcade]

does this information pertain to making a hard drive in a usb enclosure bootable? My BIOS supports booting from a usb device. I just have problems with figuring out how to make a boot sector for it or anything period. I would also have problems with making my CDs and DVDs bootable, thinking that I can just make a Windows XP ISO with nlite and then mount the image, then copy all its contents to the root of said CD, DVD, or hard drive.

Isn't there an easier way to go about making a drive bootable instead of using a floppy drive(which I don't have)? TIA.

[jaclaz]

@Sonarcade
You do not need a floppy drive.
If you have an external USB drive, you can use the "normal" Disk management" to partition it and format it.
If you format the partition as Primary from within windows (2k/XP) it will be already bootable for NT based systems (will look for NTLDR).

If you want to have it run another system, like Win9x/ME, you need to format it as FAT16, then use BOOTPART to recreate the bootsector and copy to the root the system files.

Could you post some more details on what you wsh to accomplish?

jaclaz

[engjcowi]

well i have 2 ways for you to enable you to boot from a usb stick 1 is free and 1 is a trial. the ist is PE builder 3.14 beta version which i havent got the link for right now but you should all know how to find i think its on the forum somewhere anyway install it and go to the directory and there is a bat file which enables you to do it and a handy little txt file to tell you how the only prob is that there is a lengthy download from microsoft in order to make it work. oh and its still in beta phase.

the 2nd one is flashboot

flashboot

this is a download (quite small) and allows you to also make a flashdrive bootable but its trial allows you to build and then run it once thats all so you will have to buy it.

if you do though there is a great program out there called 98lite and its like nlite but just for win 98 (as name suggests). the site has claimed to get 98SE down to 8mb still with explorer and run it off a flash drive for an "instant boot" once again you have to purchase but a demo is available and once again i dont have the link right now but will post it later. well i hope this has been helpful ive got so much information from this forum and its nice to give something back.

enjoy!

here ive attatched 98 lite (dont know if this is allowed but its only the demo)

[jaclaz]

engjcowi

Please READ the previous posts before re-adding same info, already posted by other people.

Besides, if you were trying to help Sonarcade, he needed help to boot from an USB hard drive, NOT an USB stick.

jaclaz

[Sonarcade]

jaclaz, on May 11 2005, 11:43 AM, said:

@Sonarcade
You do not need a floppy drive.
If you have an external USB drive, you can use the "normal" Disk management" to partition it and format it.
If you format the partition as Primary from within windows (2k/XP) it will be already bootable for NT based systems (will look for NTLDR).

If you want to have it run another system, like Win9x/ME, you need to format it as FAT16, then use BOOTPART to recreate the bootsector and copy to the root the system files.

Could you post some more details on what you wsh to accomplish?

jaclaz
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for the response. I'm trying to make a USB hard drive which already is filled to the wazoo a bootable drive without having to format. It's currently formatted at NTFS and has pretty much my XP CD contents copied right into the root of the USB drive. I got an error saying that it can't find NTLDR once I boot from the USB drive so I copied the NTLDR from my internal hard drive. I then got some error about boot.ini, which then got me to copy the boot.ini from my internal drive onto the external. But I have a feeling that I'm going about the wrong way about doing this since it's not really files I need to make it bootable, but the configuration of how these files will react with my USB drive. If the latter, how do I go about configuring these files to fix my problem?

I've also tried to copy the contents of my XP CD onto a DVD instead of making an image of the CD and burning the image onto the DVD. If I just burn the contents without using an image, then I get the same problem. So there's obviously something I'm not getting with this whole boot thing. Thanks.

[jaclaz]

@Sonarcade
Maybe there is a basic misunderstanding, making a drive bootable, only means that it will start booting, not that it will actually boot unless an adequate operating system is correctly installed on the drive.

Here is a simple faq:
1) Can I boot Windows XP from an USB drive?
NO.
2) Can I boot DOS/Windows 9x/ME from an USB Drive?
YES.
3) Can I boot Linux from an USB Drive?
YES.
4) So I cannot boot Windows XP from an USB drive?
NO, you CANNOT, but you can boot Bart PE, which is a "modified" Windows XP, so that it can be booted from CD/DVD rom OR from USB.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

USB support is still somehow experimental, but read these:
http://www.911cd.net...?showtopic=7632
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=10806
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=11213

jaclaz

[Sonarcade]

jaclaz, on May 15 2005, 04:02 PM, said:

@Sonarcade
Maybe there is a basic misunderstanding, making a drive bootable, only means that it will start booting, not that it will actually boot unless an adequate operating system is correctly installed on the drive.

Here is a simple faq:
1) Can I boot Windows XP from an USB drive?
NO.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

ah, OK. I can see where I've been unclear. I'm trying to make an unattended windows xp installation on my USB hard drive so I can have all my programs silently installed as well, since a CD can't hold everything. I should've said that in the first place. Phew, thanks for the prompt response. Man, I love this board...and you.

[jaclaz]

Sonarcade said:

Man, I love this board...and you.

Nonetheless, you can make the drive boot with BartPE or DOS/WIN9x, than install from it, see the given links and these ones:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=11250
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=42891&hl=
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=36062
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=33303




(only problem, if you use an nlited image and boot in DOS/Win9x is that the WINNT.EXE has still some problems, while WINNT32.EXE seems to work OK)


And keep an eye on this:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=42234&hl=


jaclaz