Tutorial: Installing XP Home/Professional from a Flash Drive

Hey all,

I recently had an issue trying to install XP on a netbook, and after about a month of research I discovered the simple answer. I learned that a rather large number of people who have no idea how to do it. So I decided to whip up a tutorial based on about twenty different webpages in case anyone else needs to install XP by using a flash drive. So happy trails, and if you have any questions, feel free to post and contribute!


INSTALLING XP FROM A FLASH DRIVE


Note: Although this is especially useful for netbooks, this applies to laptops, notebooks and desktops as well.


Windows XP has been the preferred operating system for Windows users for about half a decade. Although Windows 7 showed improvements from its counterpart, Vista, many windows users still prefer XP, especially on portable systems like netbooks, which many tests proved gave netbooks a solid half hour to an hour more battery life than any Windwos 7 version. However, netbooks lack a cd drive and most people do without buying an external one. Installing XP, then, involves more time, but there are benefits including faster installation time and the convenience of a thumb drive.


Installing XP from a thumb drive includes three main phases:

I. Setting up a bootable flash drive
II. Tweaking BIOS
III. Installing XP
IV. (recommended) Reverting to AHCI


If you are using an optical drive and stuck at the "Windows did not detect a hard drive" error, proceed to the second phase. Otherwise, proceed to the first.



I. Preparing a Bootable Flash Drive


Materials:

-32 bit operating system/XP in some cases (this includes a Virtual Console)
-Windows XP installation disc with a software key
-1 GB or greater flash drive, or an external HDD
-One of the three programs mentioned below
-XP-compliable drivers for your hardware (usually found from the manufacturer's support page)
-AHCI/SATA driver, which is usually found under the Windows Vista/7 driver list if not XP's

Before we start, I'll note that Windows 7 includes very different steps to prepping a flash drive. While those steps are easier, in my opinion, they do not work for Windows XP.

In addition, I cannot stress enough to mind the operating system you are using to prepare this flash drive. Many errors result, for example, from using a 64-bit edition of Windows 7.

There are about three ways to do this to my knowledge:


USB_multiboot 10
USB Prep8
WinSetupFromUSB
WinToFlash


USB_Prep8 and WinToFlash require only a 32-bit operating system, not XP specifically. I tried WinSetupFromUSB on Windows 7 32-bit and it gave me many errors, but I haven't tried using it to prep a flash drive from an XP environment, so if you get it to work let everyone know. WinToFlash and USB Prep 8 have very simple GUI's and are easy to use. While USB_multiboot_10 is very similar to USB_prep8, it requires an xp environment and slightly different procedures.

For the sake of this tutorial, we'll go through the steps for USB_Prep8 because its instructions are simple and don't necessarily require XP, so any current Windows 7 Starter users can go right into it from their netbooks. These steps may be done from another computer if necessary.

To start off: download this, which contains both USB_Prep8 and bootsect.exe (this is the second alternate link download on the Liliputing page mentioned below) and then follow the guide below.


Procedures courtesy of liliputing's Brad Linder:

After you prep your flash drive, insert it in the destination computer and reboot that system.


II. Configuring BIOS

After the computer which you are installing XP on reboots, a screen will appear for anywhere from ten seconds to one second. If you do not know what button you need to press to enter BIOS setup, then pay attention to that screen and figure it out (which may require a reboot or two). If you know, then gently but repeatedly hit that button and enter BIOS.

There are two main things to look for and tweak if necessary.

A) AHCI to IDE

(Note: if you have an IDE hard drive, skip to the next step)

Many systems with Vista or 7 installed automatically set the HDD mode to AHCI, which is the SATA support. Navigate through your bios and find this. When you do, change it to IDE mode (emulation). You must do this because without the IDE compatibility, XP WILL NOT recognize your hard drive. We will change this later.

B) Boot Order or Boot Options

You may choose to either bump up the boot order so that your flash drive has priority over the hard drive, or leave that order alone and set another option on the BIOS splash page to hit a button that opens up multiple drives to boot from. The choice is yours. I always prefer to bump up the installation device to top priority when installing an operating system, but if you do so, remember to bump it back after XP totally completes.


III. Installing XP

There are essentially two very easy steps to this phase. The first is formatting your hard drive (I always use NTFS, not NTFS quick) and inputting various information during the GUI portion of setup.

When your flash drive boots, you'll see a Command Prompt/DOS gui and a few options. The order of these varies depending on what program you use to prep your drive, but setup basically proceeds like this:

text-based setup first
(installer restarts)
then the GUI-based setup
(installer restarts)
then the GUI based setup

From the flash drive boot menu, choose the appropriate choice for the initial install and after every reboot. The choices are obvious.

After the third, installation will be complete.


IV. Reverting to AHCI

If you are using an IDE hard drive, installation is finished. Pat yourself on the back.

If your computer was originally configured to SATA, I recommend continuing with this last phase.

Extract the SATA drivers mentioned in the materials phase. For my Acer Aspire One, they were in a .zip folder. If you are only given the choice of an exe - in some cases, a program that makes a floppy image - you'll need to extract the exe using a program such as WinRAR (which I recommend if you don't have already). You'll need to make sure the .ini files are there. Open up the Device Manager. Expand "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers". Right click on the option that appears and click "update drivers". In some cases, people saw two instances of their driver but reported that only doing this one one worked fine.

Do not allow Windows Update > install from a specific location > "Don't Search, I will choose the driver to install." Browse to the folder where you extracted the AHCI SATA drivers. Choose a .ini file. In some cases, you will find two of these, but you only need to select one. Windows will advise against using the driver, but ignore any of its warnings and proceed until it tells you to reboot, in which case, you should.

Now enter your BIOS menu. Find your hard drive configuration, which should still be set to IDE. Set it back to AHCI. Save and exit and log in to Windows. XP will detect new hard ware and install automatically. It will then either prompt you to reboot or say that your device may not work properly until you reboot. Either way, reboot once more and everything will be good to go.


Well, there you have it, a month's worth of information compiled into a single post. If you have any questions, post them or email me. Thanks for reading.

Hi,
There's useful tool for this task - FlashBoot.
http://www.prime-expert.com/flashboot/

All I can say is after hours and hours of formatting and reformatting with failure, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

To all those browsing for solutions to this problem... THIS IS IT!

Thanks again,

rustycage

Awesome guide man, I am grateful beyond measure. Very powerful tool!

To follow on this thread, here's a video tutorial that will show you how to install Windows XP on a Netbook.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-Dt1EeCHM

Hopefully this will help too!

I am trying this and it is slick. But when I went to install on the netbook, it says a system file is missing: system34\hal.dll. I'm going to try creating the bootable USB again, maybe my computer has the hiccups.

If your computer was originally configured to SATA, I recommend continuing with this last phase.

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