Booting from USB HDD

hi,

a new comer here , i want to boot my XP/Vista Install from a USB HDD hope fully without any CD/DVDs. if possible also add Partition Magic and stuff in too, how do i do these?

Thanks

Cannot say about Vista.

For XP the (LOONG!) thread is here:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=14181

Just read the links in Dietmar's signature, and/or try the "automated way":
http://www.usboot.org/tiki-index.php

(we are talking about FULL XP, not BartPE/WinPE here, right? )

jaclaz

ya i am talking about full XP. will try that tmr, tmr i have an exam

actually i was wanting to boot & install XP not use it. and also add softwares like partition magic so i fo not need any CD.DVD anymore. so what i hope to accomplish is something like:

1. Boot From USB HDD
*. Extension: Start Partition Magic
2. Install XP (I have used nLite to make a unattended setup)
3. Install any programs from USB HDD - trying to make silent install for all programs

Well,
then go here:
http://www.msfn.org/...topic=61384&hl=

Some background, an alternative using DOS and links to most relevant posts:
http://www.msfn.org/...opic=81788&st=6
http://www.msfn.org/...opic=99453&st=3

The very last one files are here:
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=293

jaclaz

then if i want it to be NTFS instead of FAT?

and if i want to boot from a partitioned HDD? say i have a 250GB HDD with partitions will it cause any problems?

The source and destination partitions need to be FAT or FAT32 ONLY if you use the DOS+WINNT method.

They can be FAT, FAT32 or NTFS if you use the WINNT32.EXE one.

Of course there is no problem using a "partitioned" HD, there is no such thing as a "unpartitioned" HD, but I have to warn you that both methods are not (yet) aimed to the "common" end user, as a little more than average understanding of the way hard disks, PC and the NT booting is required.

Moreover, if you want to add apps, make an unattended setup (which won't be unattended at all if you plan to use Partition Magic before ), and doing your own customizations, you'll need to learn and understand quite a lot of more "advanced" topics.

My guess is that it will be then more "flexible" for your scopes a setup with a booting PE system, as in method #2 listed here:
http://www.msfn.org/...opic=81788&st=6

(though again, most probably it won't be"really" unattended)

jaclaz

Hi

Please see here.

http://www.ngine.de/...jsp?pageid=4176

Hi

Please see here.

http://www.ngine.de/...jsp?pageid=4176

Well, NO, this is the modified tubo's tutorial, derived from Dietmar's one, already linked to.

This is to install a full XP ON USB device, as in first answer, something that iceangel89 does not want.

jaclaz

it says only says using winbuilder which i did already then whats next? run winnt32.exe using winbuilder?

and after reading so many posts, i think the easiest way is method 3 instead? modifying boot.ini to load SETUPLDR.BIN isit?

but, ok want to clarify - the files i need are? (NTLDR, boot.ini etc if i am not wrong)
and the boot.ini need to be changed to?
and resources to get info on what do multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS mean. i think its something like the index of the disk then the partition etc. but like u said, i need to understand how things works.

Thanks for your help so far, really appreciate

Cannot say about Vista.

For XP the (LOONG!) thread is here:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=14181

Just read the links in Dietmar's signature, and/or try the "automated way":
http://www.usboot.org/tiki-index.php

(we are talking about FULL XP, not BartPE/WinPE here, right? )

jaclaz

Hi All,

This is my first time here,

I have managed to get my USB HDD(3.5" samsung 80G HDD) working from the tutorial given by Dietmar. ps the 1st link seems not working anymore, im getting errors by going to that link.

my question is as below;
1) is there a way to make the bootable USB HDD that i have managed to make boot on other boards other than the one i installed the WinXP on? is there any thread that have the tutorial or instruction to this?
2) i've seen few forums on booting the USB on non supported BIOS. My question would be is there a way to make the USB HDD bootable when there is no BOOT from USB HDD option? is there any related threads to this? since the one i saw on 911cd is not what i wanted to search on.

Thx

First thing welcome to the board.

You seem to have managed to get into your first two questions the two biggest unresolved problems around.

1) is there a way to make the bootable USB HDD that i have managed to make boot on other boards other than the one i installed the WinXP on? is there any thread that have the tutorial or instruction to this?

NO, at least none that is straightforward or "fool-proof".
The only known procedure is to behave exactly as for a motherboard switch:
http://www.michaelst.../moving_xp.html

XP has been DESIGNED to be NOT easily portable.

I had a relatively high rate of success moving Windows 2000 (which is much less picky) by simply removing from device manager ALL devices, switching off the machine, moving the hard disk (I am talking here about normal IDE/ATAPI HD's, not USB), put it in the new machine and boot, the hardware is re-detected from scratch, and as long as the appropriate drivers are on the system, it takes a few minutes (and a couple of re-boots) to have the system running. To manage different HALs, one can use multiple lines in boot.ini with the
/KERNEL=/HAL= switches pointing to different HALs.

But the above is however VERY different from a PE based system that is REALLY "portable".
Maybe using the Universal ATA driver and the Universal VBE driver it would be possible to have an increased (but still limited) portability, with at least a small number of core functions working, but still the problems with SATA drives and motherboard specific drivers would probably be overwhelming.

Maybe one could use a dual boot setup with DOS and use a batch file with a program like ERUNT to restore "on the spot" a different Registry, but portability would however be limited to a certain number of PC's for which a proper Registry had been built and backed up.

2) i've seen few forums on booting the USB on non supported BIOS. My question would be is there a way to make the USB HDD bootable when there is no BOOT from USB HDD option? is there any related threads to this? since the one i saw on 911cd is not what i wanted to search on.

Well, there are TWO kinds of "not booting from USB" BIOSes:
1) one that cannot boot from ANY USB device
2) one that can boot only from some specific device (for example from "floppy" but not from HD)

For the first one, there is NO solution at the moment, some ideas are reported here:
http://www.911cd.net...o...650&hl=BCDL
but noone is developing anything of the like, as far as I know.

For the second one, (typically some laptops BIOSes) through grub4dos and/or makebootfat "special" bootsector it should possible to "work around" the limitation, but there is no specific guide I know of, you'll have to experiment quite a bit.

jaclaz

2) i've seen few forums on booting the USB on non supported BIOS. My question would be is there a way to make the USB HDD bootable when there is no BOOT from USB HDD option? is there any related threads to this? since the one i saw on 911cd is not what i wanted to search on.

Don't know how geeky you are and if you're talking about your own computers.
In any case, if the computer in question has an Award BIOS you're in luck.
There are at least 2 Tools available, that give you the opportunity to build your own Award BIOS.
(Please note! If you're not a master geek, this can easily result in an unusable motherboard.)
This idea is best used with motherboards that have Dual BIOS.

Thx for the infos...

One more thing is if i'm not mistaken i've seen my friend moving from DOS to WIN98 without rebooting (if i remembered it correctly... these is during the old days) which having a dual OS on same IDE Disk. But i never learned it since i wasn't interested in these stuffs back then....

So im thinking of whether there is anyone that did by having a dual OS in the portable USB HDD in which it loads the DOS first then after fully loaded the DOS, it move to WinXP. If this is an feasible option i would like to try out this one...

ps: the mother boards that i am using is mostly having SPI chips and some of them arent AWARD BIOSEs.. and not having any boot options from USB at all. Ill worry about the bios later...

Yes and no.

Windows 98 IS DOS, to be more exact it is a graphical extension for DOS, so it is perfectly normal to start in DOS and type "WIN" to load Windows 3.x and 9.x, in Windows ME this possibility was disabled (but can be reactivated with a patch).

Windows NT/2K/XP/2003 (and Vista) have NO "underlying" DOS, but what you can do is to boot in DOS, then invoke grub.exe (the DOS executable of the grub4dos package) and from it's menu.lst chainload a NT based Operating System's NTLDR.

jaclaz

Thx
Will see what i can get hold of later using the info you gave me...

The source and destination partitions need to be FAT or FAT32 ONLY if you use the DOS+WINNT method.
They can be FAT, FAT32 or NTFS if you use the WINNT32.EXE one.

but the HP Format utility do not allow me to make bootable disk when i select NTFS

but the HP Format utility do not allow me to make bootable disk when i select NTFS

Well, I haven't used it in ages, but have you actullay tried it?
Of course it won't allow you to make a bootable DOS partition!
But the NTFS should be bootable allright, once you have copied to it the boot files:
NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM
BOOT.INI
NTBOOTDD.SYS (only if you have SCSI or some SATA drives)

But anyway it does not allow you to multipartition the disk.

The "HP" USB utility (actually DataSystems) has been designed for USB pendrives, to overcome the limits of built-in 2K/XP tools on devices that are seen as "Removable".

A USB hard Disk should be seen as "Fixed" by 2K/XP, just use normally the Disk Manager and format command of 2K/XP.
Every partition formatted with 2K/XP FORMAT command will always contain a bootable bootsector (invoking NTLDR).

If your BIOS has problems booting from the "standard" 2K/XP MBR, you can try "hexediting" it with the code that the HP USB utility uses:
http://www.boot-land...?...=2246&st=15

jaclaz

so erm ...

i copy files

NTLDR
NTDETECT.COM
BOOT.INI

right?

then how should i edit Boot.ini? just point it to the something.bin (i forgot whats it for now) file?

i was thinking of GRUB for DOS too... or will Boot.ini be enuf? if i add other things then i need GRUB for DOS right?

NO, let alone, for the moment, .bin or .bs files, one thing at the time.

You need a BOOT.INI with (at least) two entries.
Something like:

[Boot Loader]

Timeout=5

Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows

[Operating Systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Windows="Windows" /fastdetect

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\Windows="Windows" /fastdetect

Read these:
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=25365
http://www.msfn.org/...showtopic=33030
http://www.911cd.net...o...=19594&st=0


jaclaz

ok lets see... i was thinking of the 3rd method, but, ... isit more complex? it says "which is what the normal install CD does" but from what i saw in other posts, minnt, is something else right? winpe or something

To this you add that there are at least 4 possible ways to install XP:
1) from a booted 16-bit environment through WINNT.EXE
2) from a booted 32-bit environment through WINNT32.EXE
3) from a \I386 or \minint folder by invoking SETUPLDR.BIN (which is what the normal install CD does)
4) from an "expanded" pre-install bootfolder $WIN_NT$.~BT like in the flyakite multiboot DVD tutorial

if so then u recommend method 2? mmm... tried that a bit on virtual PC but can't get it to detect my USB HDD so erm now, on a real PC, i create a "mini" xp (its WinPE/BartPE also can right?) then run winnt32.exe? isit i need /noreboot /makelocalfiles? something like that... off to school soon... cya

Well, as said things must done one at the time.

First thing we need to make sure that your motherboard can boot from your USB stick.

Once, and only once that has been proved true, we can think about the actual install method.

Of the said list there is a FULLY working tutorial for method #1 and for method #4 (actually method #3 has been found not to work, and thus parts of method #3 have been "incorporated" in method #4).

The easiest is #1, FULLY documented and tested, but as said it has it's own limitations.
Thus the recommended one is method #4 that is to be considered in post-beta stage, very near to be fully mature.

Read the various howto's on the MSFN thread:
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=128
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=154
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=178
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=199

We all expect ilko_t to post a final tutorial very soon, but reading the above and using the latest batches, right now here:
http://www.msfn.org/...o...1384&st=325
is a working solution right now.

Why don't you just try it and post if you find problems on the MSFN thread?

Method #2 is theoretically the easiest of all, IF someone will take the time to test a minimal build, report errors, fix them by adding files or Registry entries, and finally publish it, and related scripts, something like "Install_PE", as the minimal system to run successfully WINNT32.EXE.

AFAIK, noone took my challenge here:
http://www.boot-land...p?showtopic=644
(or at least no material was published with this specific aim)

You can always try with a "generic" BartPE or Winbuilder build, my guess is that a mid-sized one should work.

jaclaz

1. Format the USB stick, I used HP USB Format tool, because XP format was reported as incorrect in GRUB.
2. Install GRUB MBR on the stick, the quickest way I found is by GRUBINST_GUI for WIN
3. Get the latest GRUB4DOS and copy GRLDR to the USB root.

@ step 2, hd1 will be the 2nd HDD right? and it does not support partitioned HDD?
or can i mannually do it? it it copy files grldr & grldr.mbr? i just copied all for the moment

4. Backup your current BOOT.INI and in the XP setup folder \I386 run

winnt32 /makelocalsource /noreboot

after it's finished restore BOOT.INI

windows gave this version of windows cannot be upgraded? did i do it wrong? i shld do that under my XP right? but i was under the impression that that triggers the setup to run?

5. Copy two new folders in the USB stick root - $WIN_NT$.~BT and $WIN_NT$.~LS

this requires me to do things from http://flyakite.msfn.org/ right?

by the way now this HDD is plugged directly into my motherboard for now, does it make any difference?

THANKS

finally working... but i noticed something... i nLited the XP (to make it unattended) but seems like it becomes not unattended anymore... i still need to do things like Regional Settings etc... is it becos i did my nLite wrong? (will chk in VMware).

and also for clean up, since i just copy all files in the GRUB4DOS & GRUBINST folders, can u tell me which files are needed which are not... and for menu.lst, the "GUI Setup" whats it and it does not work for me... the screen flashes and i am back to OS Selection

iceangel89,
I am happy you (partially) succeeded , but really, trying to help you is really difficult.

1) When you Quote something, you MUST somehow say FROM WHERE you Quoted that part, i.e. cite the source, otherwise the quoted snippet might be incomprehensible out of context.
2) ALWAYS choose ONE and ONLY ONE tutorial/guide/method, do not mix for ANY reason more than one together, until you are 100% sure of what you are doing.
3) ALWAYS follow the chosen tutorial/guide/method EXACTLY as it says, DO NOT introduce changes at first.
4) Once you have succeeded, start introducing your wished changes ONE (or a very few) AT THE TIME, if you introduce a series of changes it will be practically impossible (or VERY lengthy) to find out WHICH one causes a problem later.
5) If you are unsure how to perform a step, ask for clarifications BEFORE doing it.
6) The more "documented" questions are, the most probable will be that a member can answer them.

This is the only question that is "general" enough to be replied without further data on your part:

and also for clean up, since i just copy all files in the GRUB4DOS & GRUBINST folders, can u tell me which files are needed which are not

The ONLY files you need for grub4dos booting, either from a grub4dos MBR or from a C:\grldr chainloading through NTLDR and BOOT.INI are grldr and menu.lst in ROOT of the partition.


The answer to this one, as is:

and for menu.lst, the "GUI Setup" whats it and it does not work for me... the screen flashes and i am back to OS Selection

Cannot be but a Standard Reply #32:
http://www.boot-land...?...c=2587&st=1
but, besides the fact that my crystal ball is still under repair/tuning, I have also no access to Tarots and I-Ching right now.

jaclaz