Lately I have had a lot of questions about putting a Windows Operating System on
a USB Pen or Flash drive.
The program I have found that does the deed is WintoFlash how ever there is
something you need to know before you use this program.
What you need to know and do before you start your project of making the
boot usb drive:
If you have a pen/flash drive that has the U3 System on the drive you have to
remove it before you use WintoFlash. You can download the U3 System Removal
program for Sandisk
drives and remove the U3 System with this
utility.
Using the WintoFlash will only create a bootable usb drive if the cd/dvd is a
installation cd/dvd. To make say an ERD Commander or BartPE bootable drive you
need to use a utility that writes the boot sector to the usb device such as
HP's
Drive Key or
Leveno's .
(By putting the boot record or sector of a floppy on the pen drive then the
program can over write the floppy boot record with the Windows NT boot
record).
I made an ERD boot disk by using a Ghost image of the ERD CD, it did not boot.
Then I made another one with the WintoFlash program using a BartPE cd, it did
not boot either.
After fussing with it for a couple of minutes I used the HP Drive Key program to
write the boot sector then both of the pen drives boot my computer.
I am still looking at why the program will write the boot record from an OS
installation cd and not the Win PE boot record.
One thing I will point out is to be very careful with this program if you decide to
use it. It will wipe your hard drive if you fail to insure that the USB drive
you want to install the OS on is not selected.
This is what happened to me - I set up the program to copy the source files from the
'F:' drive which had the XP cd and to install the boot and source files on the
'L:' drive which was the usb drive.
How ever I decided to look at the options before I proceeded and after checking
them went back to the start page. I did not check the drive letters and
the default drive (the drive the program is installed on) was in the
installation drive. I pressed the start button and walla... The program wiped my
data drive!
So what I am warning you is to double check the drive that you are about to
install the OS on, it does format the drive.
After you download the program extract the files to a directory you want to work
from. There isn't an install in the normal sense. Once you have extracted the
files then run the wintoflash.exe. Answer yes to the license agreement and you
are ready to load up your OS on the pen/flash drive.
Here is the sequence of pages that you would go through to make the Bootable USB
drive with an OS on it:
Click the check box to start the wizard.
Select the type of installation they are:
Transfer Windows XP/2003 setup to USB Drive
Transfer WinPE XP/2003 to USB Drive
Erase disk
Transfer Windows Vista/2008/7 setup to USB Drive
Transfer WinPE Vista/2008/7 to USB Drive
Create Windows XP/2003 Emergency bootloader USB Drive
Create bootable MS-DOS USB Drive
If you want to turn the wizard off check the box other wise click next.
Select your source drive and the target USB drive, read my warning above
about the target drive!
I tried to use this format warning for security but it has a bug, all the
answers I gave it did not work, I left it off.
Now your drive is formatted and the source files are copied to the drive.
All done, as with any boot device test it before you rely on it!
A couple of thoughts about putting the OS install cd on a USB drive:
It is slower than a CD/DVD because the newer cd/dvd drives are running at about
half the speed of a mechanical hard drive.
Using a usb drive for your emergency repair device means you can add programs to
the drive as you learn about repairing computers, be careful on how you add
them. Always boot the USB drive and add your programs from that OS.
Do not add programs or files to the USB drive from a
normal OS - Doing so Will Corrupt the drive!
A usb drive will out last a cd/dvd that is used on regular basis because no
matter how careful you are with a cd/dvd it will get scratched or damaged, where
as a USB Drive will not.
Have fun, and don't for get to test the drive when you finish making it.
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
This site contains a lot of information. As
with any publication not all information is available due to space, time, or
subject constraints.
If you have a question that you did not find the answer
on this web site you a can
ask your question here and we will endeavor to get you the most up to date
answer possible!
