Hi, I have a laptop with a broken cd drive, I would like to format c drive.
I have copied windows xp to a usb flash drive and was wondering if I can boot from the flash drive to format?
I have copied xp onto the flash drive in the hope I can reboot the computer as you would with the disk in the cd drive (xp not installed on flash drive)
It's probably not a good idea to simply copy XP to the flash drive. Windows is probably preventing it from all copying with some kind of copy protection.
Do you or anyone you know have an external CD or DVD drive connected by USB? You could set that as a primary boot device if you did.
You could try this article. The situation he proposes is similar to yours. I have never used this article before, so I cannot be held responsible for any undesired outcomes.
Hope that helps. If not, you could try Google or see if anyone else here has any ideas on how to continue. I have never personally installed XP from a flash drive, but hey. First time for everything.
