Installing XP FROM flash drive.

installing xp from a flash drive? burn the xp image to the flash drive (or get the image to the flash drive some how) and boot off the flash drive on start up.

go bios and make sure boot from usb is enabled.

i don't recommend you do it though

Wouldnt it be bad for the USB?

I was wondering the same thing. I have a dying HD, and all of my windows files go to a seperate HD, so is there a way to run XP off of the USB Drive?

Performance is huge issue as well. If you want an OS on a thumb drive, get DamnSmallLinux. (www.damnsmalllinux.org)

Installing the OS off of a flash drive should work.
We use a flash drive to boot into Ghost for restoring drive images. Just plug in the USB and enter the Boot Menu... on a Dell it is F8. Then select Boot from USB device.
After that it should be just like installing off of a CD/DVD.
And this_n00b_again is right, if you do not see the USB in the Boot Menu, then you need to make sure it is enabled in the BIOS.

Okay so how do I do this? I just bought a 2gig thumb drive. My bios recognizes it. I found a guide from Tims hardware, but it isnt helping much. What I'm trying to do is literally use the stick as the hardrive that windows will run and sit on. Not just as an emergency boot thing.

I formatted it to FAT and when I tried to just install windows on it, I got an error screen and also the "can't find boot device". I don't understand why it won't just install and everything....

Please Help.

what you're wondering is different. he wanted to install windows FROM the usb stick, not ON the usb stick.

ok so now this is a different story. but i still don't recommend you do it. but if you must.

to install windows on it. you need to have a working cd drive, put the windows cd in it and goto the bios and somewhere it will have something in the order of "boot sequence" or "first boot device" or something along those mannors, you must boot from the cd drive with the windows disk. then restart. then when it says press any key to continue, then follow the steps from there.

and 2gigs? can windows even be installed on 2gigs? this installation may take you a LONG time.

Taking a look at the article, I see there are some requires that must be met for this to work, i.e. a newer motherboard.

Do you meet all these requirements?

Yea it can, I had tons of space on it. It didn't take that long. I'll get back to you on the status, lol, just please don't go anywhere so I can get through this.

Yes, I do, my system is all up to date.

Quote:

LOL that is funny

Alright, it copied all the files over, then i saw the XP loading bar screen, then I got the blue error screen again. Sooooooooo, I don't even know.

ok once all the files copy over to the usb, it will restart.

now when its restarting make sure the 2nd boot device is the USB stick. (1st boot device is the cd rom still)

when it says press any key to continue, don't press anything

it will start loading xp and attempt the start the install.

if you get an error what is the error message

there will probably be several reasons why it will error so you gotta be specific.

What is the STOP code you get when it blue screens? Make sure you get the numbers after the code.

First of all, Is this going to be on ONE computer or more then 2 computers? Because heres the first thing thats going to happen right when you install XP from the one computer and stick it into an other computer...your going to get the "BSOD" (blue screen of death). Why? Because:
1. Copy protection,
2. Installing mixed types of hardware will cause the installed image of XP to become unstable.

If i were you id install Linux onto a flash drive.