Anyone know how to make a usb jump drive bootable?

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paulcheung

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I try to make a jump drive bootable and no luck, anyone can help? I took out the hard drive from my computer and boot the computer with xp sp2 installation dvd. it start and copy the files to the jump drive and reboot. then went blank can't go through. any ideas?
Thanks.
Paul
 
I'm not sure what you mean. You have an empty hdd and you have inserted the dvd for installing windows xp sp2 and it isn't booting from the dvd?

If that is the case, make sure that your dvd drive is installed correctly and that it can actually read the disc type (that it actually is a dvd drive and not only a cd drive). The next thing would be to check if the disc is damaged in any way (scratches can make a disc unreadable). After that you should check your bios settings if booting from an optical drive is enabled (usually in the hardware control section). After that if it doesn't automatically boot from the dvd you should go in the boot menu and select booting from dvd.

That is the limit of my knowledge of things to do... If it doesn't help I would say that your drive is malfunctioning or some other part of your computers hardware isn't working properly.
 
davidandersson said:
I'm not sure what you mean. You have an empty hdd and you have inserted the dvd for installing windows xp sp2 and it isn't booting from the dvd?

If that is the case, make sure that your dvd drive is installed correctly and that it can actually read the disc type (that it actually is a dvd drive and not only a cd drive). The next thing would be to check if the disc is damaged in any way (scratches can make a disc unreadable). After that you should check your bios settings if booting from an optical drive is enabled (usually in the hardware control section). After that if it doesn't automatically boot from the dvd you should go in the boot menu and select booting from dvd.

That is the limit of my knowledge of things to do... If it doesn't help I would say that your drive is malfunctioning or some other part of your computers hardware isn't working properly.
Click to expand...
NO, I took out the harddrive because I don't want it get mess up. It boot up with the dvd drive and reconized the jump drive as c:. I went through the partition and formating the jump drive and set it to ntfs file system and start copy installation files to it. but when it should reboot from the jump drive to finish set up windows XP. there is hang up and not boot.
thanks
Paul
 
paulcheung said:
NO, I took out the harddrive because I don't want it get mess up. It boot up with the dvd drive and reconized the jump drive as c:. I went through the partition and formating the jump drive and set it to ntfs file system and start copy installation files to it. but when it should reboot from the jump drive to finish set up windows XP. there is hang up and not boot.
thanks
Paul
Click to expand...

I think when you heard the term "bootable jump drive" you thought it meant you could boot windows from it. I think what you saw was someone explaining how to burn an image (the xp sp2 installation) onto a jump drive so you could install it from the jump drive.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think you can boot windows from a jump drive.
 
Rlad78 said:
I think when you heard the term "bootable jump drive" you thought it meant you could boot windows from it. I think what you saw was someone explaining how to burn an image (the xp sp2 installation) onto a jump drive so you could install it from the jump drive.

I'm not entirely sure, but I don't think you can boot windows from a jump drive.
Click to expand...

That is what I want. install Windows XP from the jump drive. but I can't burn the image to the jump drive. what I was trying is to install windows system to the jump drive so I can use it to boot the computer to do system recovery. the netbook has no cd/dvd drive. I can't get my hand on a external drive right now. so do you know how to make the jump drive bootable?
Thanks
Paul
 
paulcheung said:
That is what I want. install Windows XP from the jump drive. but I can't burn the image to the jump drive. what I was trying is to install windows system to the jump drive so I can use it to boot the computer to do system recovery. the netbook has no cd/dvd drive. I can't get my hand on a external drive right now. so do you know how to make the jump drive bootable?
Thanks
Paul
Click to expand...

First off, you need a computer with a cd/dvd drive to rip the files from the cd. Then, download PowerIso and make the files into an iso (never had to do this with PowerISO, so don't really know how. Shouldn't be too hard). Then, do this:

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

Method 2
Use the "nLite" if you can't get PowerISO to work.

I remember there were programs that would just automatically make bootable flash drives, but I don't have them anymore. If this seems like too much work, then I'd just wait for someone else.
 
Rlad78 said:
First off, you need a computer with a cd/dvd drive to rip the files from the cd. Then, download PowerIso and make the files into an iso (never had to do this with PowerISO, so don't really know how. Shouldn't be too hard). Then, do this:

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

Method 2
Use the "nLite" if you can't get PowerISO to work.

I remember there were programs that would just automatically make bootable flash drives, but I don't have them anymore. If this seems like too much work, then I'd just wait for someone else.
Click to expand...
THANK you, I am try to see if I can get it to work.
Paul
 
IIRC you can't install xp from a removable media such as a flash drive and hard drive. I tried it awhile back trying to get xp to install from an external hdd and I didn't have any luck. I'm sure there is a way, but I gave up and used ubuntu instead. I don't know if it's legal either.
 
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