Help & How-to
Install Windows 2000/XP/2003 using USB Storage Device (Pen Drive)
Digg it!
Tweet it!
Share on FacebookWe already blogged the method to install Windows Vista/7/2008 using USB pen drive, after this my few friends asked me to the same with Windows XP too. I tried to find out the solution but didn’t get simple and straight forward way to make this. Well today I have solution, who want to make bootable USB pen drive to install Windows XP.
Before we start, it requires:
- USB Storage Device (Pen Drive) at least 1GB
- Windows 2000/XP/2003 CD or Installation Source
- and finally WinSetupFromUSB.
How To:
1. Download WinSetupFromUSB and install it.
2. Plug your Pen Drive and run the program.
3. First of all local the CD or installation source of Windows, which contains I386/AMD64 folders.
4. In target disk type, the utility scans disk type automatically but you can to select Removable for Pen drives and Fixed for external USB storage device forcibly it doesn’t. Once you done. Its time to format the disk.
The utility gives two options.
- HP Format Tool – to format 2GB or above of partitions.
- PEtoUSB – to format up to 2GB of partitions
Use as per your pen drive size.
5. Clear checkbox entitled – Copy Setup boot files only. This option will copy just a minimal set of files (7-12MB). There is an option to change Windows installation directory too. You can set as per your interest.
6. Now the most important part of process. There are two entries to be filled by Disk Nr. and Partition Nr.
Disk Nr.- on which of your disks Windows will be installed to. For example if you have two internal disks, first is disk 0, second is disk 1.
Partition Nr.- in which partition of the above selected disk Windows will be installed to. For example, you want to install this on C drive then its 1 and so on.
Note: Rest of part, you can leave intact, if you want to make bootable Windows XP pen drive only. Otherwise there are few more options to add extra stuff.
7. Press Go button to accomplish the task. Now restart your PC and boot from USB Storage device.
8. You need to follow 3-Steps Installation. Keep the USB disk plugged and start from USB 3 times.
- Text mode part of setup
- GUI mode part of setup
- Start Windows for first time
When the first step completes and system reboots, select Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup – First and Second Parts, then Option 2 (second part) for the second stage of the setup.
DO NOT REMOVE THE USB PEN FROM USB PORT UNTIL YOU SEE THE WINDOWS START MENU
Applies To:
- Windows XP
- Windows Server 2003
- Windows 2000
- Windows Server 2000
Tags: How to, Installation, Tips and Tricks, Utility, Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, WinSetupFromUSB
Wow!!! What an awesome trick!!! Cool bootable XP USBs…..gr88one for XP users….no need of CDs…thanks Ramesh for this awesome find…
Nice trick…Thanks Ramesh !
Nice one RK….thnx!!!
That’s owsome.I was searching for this kind of tool for a lot of time.
i like ur style of working and for new experiments u solve a big problem of mine
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Susan
http://carusbcharger.com
glad to know, you have found it useful.
Thanks Susan!
I want to install windows 2000. Anyone knows how to do it with this software? Because I followed the instructions it’s not working.
@ Dimitris, I’d like to know too, I tried it with this method, and the pen drive would boot, but only into the grub terminal. It would be awesome to get this working for 2k (particularly for my eee pc and a few other devices.
i have an asus eee too.. i want to install win2k from usb, for performance and space
tell us how .. thanks
I tried to install Windows 2000 Pro and I got a message error:
*********************************************************
Line -1:
Error: Subscript used with non-Array variable.
*********************************************************
Any one know ho to solve this error?
Tks!
I tried to install Windows Server 2003 using the above process on my Dell Studio laptop. I already have Win XP on another partition and wanted to make my system dual boot with Win XP and Win Server 2003. All files were successfully copied to usb and I was able to boot from usb.
The setup of 2003 started fine but it could not locate any of my hard drive partitions. Instead, the only drive it could recognize was my usb drive.
It is just giving me the option of installing Win Server 2003 on my usb drive !!
I’ve already spent two days on this but could not find any solution.:-((
Any one who can help me on this?
Thanks in advance.