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How to create a USB Windows XP/Vista installation drive |
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What you will need: A 4gb high speed USB stick Windows XP Installation CD Vista Installation DVD Retail or OEM versions will work equally well An archiver to extract files; WinRAR or 7zip
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USB_Multiboot_10 is the main program you are using for making the XP USB install. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089 I cannot stress how incredible this program is. There are many contributing authors. Please take a moment to view them.
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The above program will make the drive bootable using the Windows NT ntldr, but I chose to boot directly from GRUB4DOS. There are other ways to do it, but downloading GRUB4DOS gui installer is the easiest. http://download.gna.org/grubutil/
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Preparing the installation files Extract the above two files to your c drive. You will need WinRAR or 7zip for this. WinRAR is commercial, but you can download the shareware version. Or download 7zip, which is freeware.
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Next copy all the files on your vista installation dvd to c:\winvista.
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Next copy all the files on your xp installation cd to c:\winxp.
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At this point, I recommend slimming down your vista and xp installation files. Consider using nLite to trim down your XP, and vLite to trim down Vista. Some people argue against this, but I have used it with success, and in addition to taking out components you do not use, it allows you to integrate updates and drivers, so you will not have to install them after windows setup. To read my guide on nLiteing XP, click here To read my guide on vLiteing Vista, click here Or else continue on to the next step |
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Preparing the USB drive Connect your usb stick and format it.
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Format ntfs as shown. (FYI: most USB drives come pre-formatted as FAT32; this will not work well for our purpose)
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Now use the grub gui installer.
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First, select the disk radio button, then click refresh, then choose your usb drive from the drop down list. The list will likely look different on your computer.
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Next click on the lower refresh button and then from the drop down list, choose Whole disk.
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Check the Don't search floppy, and then click Install.
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You should get this message, then close the gui installer.
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At this point, your drive is bootable, but you need to copy grldr to your usb drive. Copy it from the X_CONTENT under your USB_Multiboot_10 folder.
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Now would be a good time to test your usb drive to make sure it boots. Just create a simple menu.lst file, or download mine here, and copy it to the usb drive.
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Reboot, go into your bios and specify your usb drive as the first boot device, or if your bios offers a one-time boot menu (F12 on many systems) select your usb drive. If you did everything correctly, this is the boot menu you should get.
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Running the Multiboot Utility Now that you know the USB drive is booting, go to the USB_MultiBoot_10 folder. Run USB_MultiBoot_10.cmd.
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Since our drive is already formatted, we choose "N" for No format.
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Choose 1 to select Windows XP source files.
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If you used nlite, choose Yes to copy the nlited winnt.sif file. If you are using the original windows xp installation files, choose no to use the provided winnt.sif.
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If you used nlite, choose Yes to copy the nlited $OEM$ folder. If you are using the original windows xp installation files, choose no to use the provided $OEM$ folder.
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If you used nlite, or want an unattended install, choose yes here.
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The program will ask you to fill in some personalization info if you want unattended. Type in your info for each box that pops up.
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Next choose 2 to tell the program where your usb drive is.
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Next choose V to tell the program where your vista source files are.
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{Optional} Go to the USB_MultiBoot_10\X_CONTENT folder. Delete the five items below if you do not want them copied to the drive. (These are folders where you can add your applications and drivers, and integrate them into the install. Unnecessary if you used nLite.) And grldr is already installed from a previous step.
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{Optional} If you want to add any bootable images to your drive, copy them to USB_MultiBoot_10\X_CONTENT\images folder. Or you can copy them directly to the images folder on usb drive after this program completes. Some useful utilities I recommend: Memtest; for testing your computer's memory http://www.memtest.org/#downiso NTFS4DOS to read from and write to any ntfs partition; click here for my guide on making an NTFS enabled DOS boot disk
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{Optional} You can also add a BartPE/WinPE environment. If you have one, specify the folder. If you don't have one, but want one, see my guide on how to make one.
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Starting the build Now we are ready to start the build. Choose 3 to begin.
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Choose yes to let the program install the required ntldr on the usb drive (needed for winxp install).
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After the program copies all the boot files to the drive, it will ask you if you want to copy the windows xp source files to the drive. Click yes. It will also copy the Vista and BartPE source files and the bootable images you added above during this step. Should take about 10 minutes or so. Longer if you are using the full windows sources.
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When it is done, it will ask if you want to make XP the preferred device. Choose yes. I am not sure what no is for, other than if you have SATA and IDE drives. If you do, you are on your own.
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When you see this you are done.
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Go to your usb drive, it should look like this. Delete the file boot.ini. Since we are using GRUB, it is not needed. And it will unnecessarily bring up the boot manager screen in Vista if you leave it there.
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Setting the GRUB menu Now we need to put a proper grub menu in place. You can use this one, and customize it to your needs. Any bootable iso should be configured like the Memtest entry below. Any bootable floppies should be configured like the DOS floppy image.
If you just want a menu for XP and Vista install, use this one:
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Reboot your computer to the usb drive and play around with it! Just make sure you don't go very far in the windows installs until you are ready to reformat your hard drive. To test them, you can go up to the point where it asks where you want to install windows without altering your hard drive. No worries if you choose the default of Start Windows XP at this point, it will simply boot up your Windows XP already installed on your first hard drive.
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If you really want to be fancy:
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Your multiboot USB stick is now complete. |
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If you are getting a blue screen stop error when you start the text mode setup of Windows XP from your USB stick, click here my guide on how to get a modified ntdetect.com
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