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[Tutorial] Install Windows XP From USB in a simple way

rufus windows xp iso

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#51 ilko

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 08:03 PM

Disk order on the partitioning screen is according to the order drivers enumerated the hard disks, not BIOS order, and is hard to be predicted, thus autopartition=1 must be always avoided when installing from USB disk.


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#52 mraeryceos

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 08:20 PM

Steve6375 wrote:

 

 

With Easy2Boot you can use an XP ISO with an unattend.txt file and use the WinPE method to install XP. You also need a WinPE (v2/3/4) ISO -  e.g.  any Win7-based WinPE ISO or even a Win7 install ISO will do.

 

I may try that someday.  Sounds more involved.

 

 

E2B also has a 3-boot XP install but it will automatically generate a mass-storage F6 virtual floppy disk matching the hardware you run it on. This allows you to install a vanilla XP SP3 ISO onto an AHCI PC without needing to modify the ISO and add mass-storage drivers.

 

Wow!  How do your drivers compare with the ones from driverpacks?



#53 steve6375

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 08:30 PM

They are the drivers from the mass storage XP 32-bit driverpack - it just selects the correct one and makes a virtual F6 boot floppy using them.



#54 Akeo

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 08:42 PM

 Why is Windows XP picking the flash drive over the hard drive?

 

Because Windows XP was never designed to be installed from USB.

 

As such, and unlike what is the case for an Optical Drive, which the installation program was designed to tell apart and not list as a target device, it doesn't know how to make the difference between an USB Flash Drive and an internal HDD. As far as Windows XP is concerned, both are equally valid target drives for installation. And since the USB Flash Drive is the one you boot from, if you don't do anything, it's the one that will be picked by default as a target.

 

To work around that, Rufus uses a custom boot block that tries to swap the USB Flash Drive with the first HDD partition. This works well when you want to install XP on the first partition of the HDD, but as you indicated above, you have a second partition and want to install it there.

 

Two things you can try:

  • Change the parition type of your first partition to hidden FAT32 before you try to install XP (and restore it after the install)
  • In Rufus, use the advanced options (click the white triangle) and try to set the BIOS ID to something different than the default

I make no guarantee that any of these work. As soon as you deviate from a standard installation (one HDD with a single target partition) and don't use Optical Media, XP becomes a PITA to install, so there's a lot of trial and error involved to get it to install as you want. But that's really what you get from trying to install an OS that was never designed to be installed from USB...



#55 mraeryceos

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 08:59 PM

Akeo wrote:

 

...To work around that, Rufus uses a custom boot block that tries to swap the USB Flash Drive with the first HDD partition. This works well when you want to install XP on the first partition of the HDD, but as you indicated above, you have a second partition and want to install it there.

 

No, I want XP to be installed to the first partition (the FAT32 one, not the extended logical NTFS partition).



#56 Akeo

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Posted 13 December 2013 - 10:38 PM

No, I want XP to be installed to the first partition (the FAT32 one, not the extended logical NTFS partition).

 

Doesn't matter. You have 2 partitions that XP might recognize, and this will create problems for the XP installer when running from bootable USB (and I should probably have said "this works well when you want to install XP on a single drive with a single partition").

You can either spend a lot of time trying to figure the options that will work, so that it installs on the FAT32 one, or hide everything you don't want the XP installer to see by setting these partitions type to hidden.



#57 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 14 December 2013 - 09:26 AM

I would add that - besides the nice :) newish tool by Akeo  :worship: - it is like 7 (seven) years that several slightly different methods and tools were developed.

Here:
http://www.msfn.org/...ndows-from-usb/

each of them having some advantages (and possibly disadvantages :ph34r:) but - globally - capable of installing XP from USB on pretty much *anything* with *any* configuration, if one tool/method doesn't work for your particular setup, use aother one, they are all free (both as in freedom and as in free beer)  :smiling9:

 

:cheers:

Wonko



#58 mraeryceos

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Posted 15 December 2013 - 12:13 PM

I think I will be happy removing autopartition=1 from Winnt.sif.  A little more flexibility is nice.  Everything went well, except that Rufus for some reason didn't copy all the $oem$ folders from my ISO.  I added them back to the flash drive manually using a folder comparison app, and I think everything will work now.  The folders included $\ and $$\.

 

Can I use Rufus in conjunction with Easy2Boot, such that I won't have to go through a 3 stage process for installing XP (as I would have to with Easy2Boot, by itself?)  Is the following web page explain how?

http://www.rmprepusb...tutorials/rufus

 

And here's an extra off-topic question:

Do you recommend using an ISO image editor, or does it take about the same time to edit the source and create a new ISO each time?


Edited by mraeryceos, 15 December 2013 - 12:30 PM.


#59 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 15 December 2013 - 07:48 PM

 

Do you recommend using an ISO image editor, or does it take about the same time to edit the source and create a new ISO each time?

Please don't. (use an .iso editor)

Though most such programs have definitely bettered their way of working in recent years, a booting .iso (and particularly a booting Windows install or PE .iso) has a number of requisites/needs/whatever that itis advised (by me) to always rebuild the .iso from the source/contents.

Or, if you prefer, I cannot remember a single case where a (properly) rebuilt .iso had issues and can instead recall tens of cases where the edited .iso failed.

This does not mean that a given editor will not work alright for a given .iso editing, of course, only that it may not.

 

JFYI (not necessarily useful for Windows .iso's, but...):

http://reboot.pro/to...ting-iso-files/

 

:cheers:

Wonko


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#60 steve6375

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Posted 15 December 2013 - 08:02 PM

Can I use Rufus in conjunction with Easy2Boot, such that I won't have to go through a 3 stage process for installing XP (as I would have to with Easy2Boot, by itself?)  Is the following web page explain how?

http://www.rmprepusb...tutorials/rufus

 

 

Sure, instead of menu.lst, just make a \_ISO\MAINMENU\Rufus.mnu file with the same contents.



#61 Akeo

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Posted 15 December 2013 - 08:31 PM

Everything went well, except that Rufus for some reason didn't copy all the $oem$ folders from my ISO.  I added them back to the flash drive manually using a folder comparison app, and I think everything will work now.  The folders included $\ and $$\.

 

If Rufus misses some directory on the copy, then that's something I'd like to fix.

Can I please ask you to recreate the bootable USB using Rufus and then send me the complete log (it may provide some info as to why these directories were skipped), as well as the exact path of the directories that were missed on the ISO, if there is more than \$\ and \$$\.

 

Or, if you have a link to the ISO you used, that I could download, that would be even better.



#62 mraeryceos

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Posted 16 December 2013 - 12:57 AM

Wonko, thanks a lot because I don't want the headaches!

Akeo, I will send you a PM.  Also would appreciate feedback if you use Windows.  Spent a lot of hours on that stupid custom XP.


Edited by mraeryceos, 16 December 2013 - 01:01 AM.


#63 Akeo

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Posted 17 December 2013 - 01:52 AM

Tried an ISO with \$oem$\$$ and \$oem$\$1 and I'm not seeing any issue (i.e. the directories seem to be properly extracted). The UFD seemed to boot alright, and I saw a bunch of drivers being loaded during setup. The UFD was created with the latest Rufus using Windows 7 x64.

Just in case, please make sure you use Rufus v1.4.1 (the latest) and not v1.4.0. There was a bug related to improper readout of ISO 9660 images fixed in v1.4.1.

 

Can you please try again, and if you still see an issue, send me the full log from Rufus?



#64 mraeryceos

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Posted 17 December 2013 - 08:12 AM

I have Rufus v1.4.1, but I am on Win7 32 bit.  I have a Core Duo processor (not Core 2 Duo).  It happened to me twice, so I'm sure it doesn't copy certain files over.  How do I create and find the log files?


Edited by mraeryceos, 17 December 2013 - 08:13 AM.


#65 Akeo

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Posted 17 December 2013 - 10:27 AM

There's a "Log" button right on the left of the "Start" button:

 

rufus.png

 

It will open a new window (the log) that also has a "Save Log" button. Just create your flash drive using the ISO, and then send me the full log. If any files are not copied, it should be very obvious by comparing the content of the log and the content of the ISO.

 

And just to confirm, the directories that had the issue were \$oem$\$$ and \$oem$\$1, right?



#66 mraeryceos

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Posted 20 December 2013 - 08:51 PM

Akeo, I tried it, and all the files got copied fine.  I'm not sure what happened the last time.  I have recreated the ISO more than once (I go along making changes and recreate the ISO afterwards), so perhaps something went wrong there, in a previous ISO.  I tried it on two external flash drives, and each time Rufus did fine.  Sorry about that.



#67 Akeo

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Posted 21 December 2013 - 11:04 PM

No worries. While I'm kind of happy to hear that Rufus doesn't seem to be at fault here, I also know that there's probably a few bugs lurking that I haven't uncovered yet, so it's always worth investigating a weird behaviour, no matter what the outcome is. Plus it gave me an opportunity to test a slightly different XP ISO, which is always good!

 

If you find anything else that seems odd, don't hesitate to let me know.



#68 mraeryceos

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Posted 21 December 2013 - 11:28 PM

What did you find different about this XP? I use the last option of nLite to create the ISO file. I use driverpacks that replaces the XP setup with one that installs the drivers (which takes forever, but since the install is unattended it takes less work in the end). There are also other differences. Are you referring to the ISO format somehow being different?

#69 Akeo

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Posted 21 December 2013 - 11:40 PM

Well, I didn't have an ISO with nLite, and I currently have an issue opened related to nLite, so having an ISO that was processed by nLite, and that managed to boot on my system tells me that the nLite issue has probably something very specific to it and should (hopefully) not affect every nLite users.

 

But basically, even if they only differ slightly, the more ISOs I get to test, the better. You never know what you might find!



#70 Viswanath

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Posted 05 January 2014 - 04:53 AM

Thanks for the tutorial. The tool is very helpful.



#71 Don 1 Design

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Posted 16 January 2014 - 05:27 PM

i try this methode but i always get stuck in this blue screen

 

windows setup

 

setup could not determine the type of one or more mass storage devices instaled in your system, or you have chosen to manually spcecify an adapter currently setup will load support for the following mass storage devices:

 

To specify additionnal SCSI adapters, CDROM driver, or special disk controllers for use with windows. inclding those for which you have a device support disk from a mass storage device manufacturer. press S

 

if you do not have any device support disks from a mass storrage device manufacturer, or do not want to specify additionnal mass storage devices for use with windwos. press ENTER

 

 

 

what should I do



#72 steve6375

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Posted 16 January 2014 - 06:06 PM

If you are installing XP to a non-IDE hard disk, then you have to add the correct mass storage driver (e.g. AHCI driver for SATA disks) to the XP ISO first. Most people use nLite.

The other alternative is to use a solution which will work with an unmodified XP Install ISO such as Easy2Boot or WinSetupFromUSB. Both of these use DPMS2 and will auto-detect the correct mass storage driver from a whole collection of mass storage drivers. Easy2Boot will work directly from the ISO file (just copy the ISO onto the Easy2Boot drive). WinSetupFromUSB will process the files inside the ISO to prepare a bootable USB drive. 



#73 dogbotherer

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Posted 17 January 2014 - 02:39 PM

Hello!!!!

 

THe Problem!

                                 NTLDR is missing!

 

I have no optical disk with which to repair my windows!

 

Using a laptop,I have followed the instructions to create a USB bootdisk, using an iso of my MS XP disc

 

I plug the USB into the front of the system unit, start the computer and - Nowt, nothing, nix, nadir! (snafu!)

 

Perhaps (?) I need to change something in my bios? So that the desktop can boot off of the USB memory stick?

 

Thoughts anyone?

 

 



#74 steve6375

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Posted 17 January 2014 - 02:47 PM

How about - change the boot order in the BIOS so that it boots off the USB drive first - or press an F key (e.g. F12) or ESC key to get a boot selection menu.

Since we don't know what your system is or the mainboard, we can't guess as to what you need to select in the BIOS exactly...



#75 dogbotherer

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Posted 17 January 2014 - 05:45 PM

Yus indeed,

 

well... i've had progress.... ish! 

 

I changed the boot sequence but that just resulted in a flashing cursor.

Then I disabled the SATA HDD and ...

VOILA!

 

Then most of the way through the XP reinstall the damn thing decided it didnt like my product key.

Its the same key ( the one on the label - on the side of the confuser!)

 

Wonder if disabling the SATA HDD stops it from working? cant imagine why? Or some error in the ISO image from the CD? 

 

One step forwards - two steps back!

 

Ah! just re-enabled the Sata HDD and turned the system unit on and it looks promising ( though probably not ) whys it all so damn complicated!! 

 

Am I now off topic? 







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