How to Install Windows XP using USB Flash Disk

What you need:
- USB Flash Disk drive with at least 1 GB of capacity. High speed is not necessary but preferred.
- usb_prep8 (download it here) and bootsect (download it here)
- a personal computer or laptop with Windows Xp or Vista installed (so, you have a computers to set up your bootable USB Flash Disk)
- A genuine copy of Windows XP or Vista.

Procedure (for copying XP to USB and configuring USB for installing XP)

1. Extract usb_prep8 and bootsect.
2. In usb_prep8 folder. Double click usb_prep8.cmd. A command prompt will open.
3. Press any key to continue. A PeToUSB window will open;
4. Don’t change anything in the PeToUSB window, just click “Start”. Formatting of your USB will then start. It will only take a few seconds.
5. DO NOT close the two windows (PetoUSB and usb_prep8). Now open a new command prompt by typing “cmd” in the Start->Run box. In this NEW command prompt, go to the directory where bootsect.exe is saved. Now type “bootsect.exe /nt52 X:“. Change “X” with the letter drive directory of your USB drive.
NOTE: When running the bootsect.exe command you cannot have any windows open displaying the content of your USB stick. If all went well you should see “Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.” Now close this command prompt (Still, Do not close usb_prep8).
6. Now close PeToUSB window.
7. Now you need to enter the correct information for numbers 1-3.
Press 1 and then enter. A folder browse window will open for you to browse to the location of you XP setup files (aka your cdrom drive with xp cd in it)
Press 2 and enter a letter NOT currently assigned to a drive on your PC, say Z
Press 3 and enter the drive letter of your USB stick
Press 4 to start the process.
8. The script will ask you if its ok to format drive Z:. This is just a temp drive the program creates to cache the windows installation files. Press Y then enter.
9. Once it’s done formatting, press enter to continue again, you will now see the program copying Windows XP files from your CD to the temp drive it created. This will take around 3-5 minutes. Once this is done press enter to continue again.
10. Next you will see a box pop up asking you to copy the files from temp drive to USB drive. Of course, click “Yes”. This will take around 15 minutes, depending on the speed of your USB. In my case, it took around 30 Minutes.
11. Once the program has completed copy files a popup window asking if you would like to USB drive to be preferred boot drive U: select YES on this window
12. You’re done with this part. Now select yes to unmount the virtual drive.

Procedure 2 (Installing XP into your PC without CD-ROM using USB thumb drive)
1. Insert your USB then start your PC, then go to BIOS set-up. Set USB as your primary boot device. If it did not boot on the USB after doing this, there is an option in the BIOS where you can change the primary and secondary memory, set USB as the primary. When doing this, I also changed the OS installation from “finished” to “start” just to make sure that the installation will work.
2. On the startup menu you have two options, select option number for text mode setup.
3. From this point on, it is just like any other windows XP installation. When prompt, delete all the partition. Recreate the primary partition on your PC and format it using NTFS.
4. Once the text mode portion of setup is complete, the computer will reboot. This time, boot into the GUI mode.
5. Once the GUI portion of setup is complete you will again have to boot into GUI mode to complete the XP installation until you end up at your XP desktop. It is very important that you DO NOT REMOVE THE USB STICK before this point. Once you can see your start menu it is safe to remove the usb stick and reboot your pc to make sure everything worked.