Clone XP Installer Disc To Hard Drive Partition

MattD313 · 11-27-2009, 05:32 PM

I have done this using Disk Utility on a Mac but for Leopard- but I can't get it to work with an XP Disc...

Basically here is my scenario:

I bought a netbook that has no CD Drive, but plenty of USB ports.
I have plenty of external drives as well as an XP Pro or Vista Disc.
I do not have an external CD drive and don't plan to purchase one...

How can I clone the bootable XP or Vista disc onto an external USB drive so I can boot up the installer on the netbook (without buying a external cd drive)

I'm assuming it's something simple I'm missing, but maybe not.

Thanks in advance!

**blah789** · 11-28-2009, 08:44 PM

I haven't tried this (at least not from a USB device), but you can.

Make a USB pen drive bootable using one of the utilities here
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm
Copy the i386 folder from the XP CD onto the drive.
Boot from the drive. I have NO idea what drive letter you'll get, but I'm going to guess A:\
type the following commands:
cd i386
winnt

it should work in theory because I do that all the time from my hard drive.
I once made a custom bootable CD-ROM (windows 98 - floppy emulation). I partitioned my hard drive as C: and D: and copied everything from the XP CD onto the D: drive. I boot from the Windows 98 CD, I type smartdrv (the disk cache program), D: to get to the D: drive, CD <the folder name>, then winnt as above.
(Why would I do that if I have access to the CD-ROM drive? Simple: installation from the hard drive is a LOT faster!)

Tip: If you can get smartdrv.exe to the flash drive, it might speed things up. For example from here
http://soporific.dsleague.com/downloads/smartdrv.exe
Type it first thing after you boot. Then type the rest (cd i386, winnt).

If it doesn't work out let me know. I've been meaning to test USB booting at some point.

11-27-2009, 05:32 PM	#1 (permalink)
MattD313 Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 93 OS: OSX 10.6, Vista SP2, XP SP3, Ubuntu UNR	Clone XP Installer Disc To Hard Drive Partition I have done this using Disk Utility on a Mac but for Leopard- but I can't get it to work with an XP Disc... Basically here is my scenario: I bought a netbook that has no CD Drive, but plenty of USB ports. I have plenty of external drives as well as an XP Pro or Vista Disc. I do not have an external CD drive and don't plan to purchase one... How can I clone the bootable XP or Vista disc onto an external USB drive so I can boot up the installer on the netbook (without buying a external cd drive) I'm assuming it's something simple I'm missing, but maybe not. Thanks in advance!

11-28-2009, 08:44 PM	#2 (permalink)
blah789 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 2,439 OS: Windows 2000 SP4 and Windows XP SP3	Re: Clone XP Installer Disc To Hard Drive Partition I haven't tried this (at least not from a USB device), but you can. Make a USB pen drive bootable using one of the utilities here http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm Copy the i386 folder from the XP CD onto the drive. Boot from the drive. I have NO idea what drive letter you'll get, but I'm going to guess A:\ type the following commands: cd i386 winnt it should work in theory because I do that all the time from my hard drive. I once made a custom bootable CD-ROM (windows 98 - floppy emulation). I partitioned my hard drive as C: and D: and copied everything from the XP CD onto the D: drive. I boot from the Windows 98 CD, I type smartdrv (the disk cache program), D: to get to the D: drive, CD <the folder name>, then winnt as above. (Why would I do that if I have access to the CD-ROM drive? Simple: installation from the hard drive is a LOT faster!) Tip: If you can get smartdrv.exe to the flash drive, it might speed things up. For example from here http://soporific.dsleague.com/downloads/smartdrv.exe Type it first thing after you boot. Then type the rest (cd i386, winnt). If it doesn't work out let me know. I've been meaning to test USB booting at some point.