================================================================================ ================================= Author: Ilko Version: 0.

1 Credits: jaclaz, cdob, wimb and porear from MSFN forum for their continuous help and work on Installing XP from USB, without who this wouldn't have happened, as well as to everyone, who contributed to the project with ideas, requests or f eedback. Thanks to UglyBob, ptrex, SmOke_N, aec and ezzetabi from AutoIt forum for their excellent AutoIt script examples, parts of which were used. Thanks to Anton Bassov for his dummydisk.sys driver and help for reverting it's behaviour to rdummy.sys, which makes USB fixed disks to be seen as removable. Thanks to Ercofrafrom msfn.org forum for ideas to fix some of the issues with un attended section in WINNT.SIF isung fake setup.exe. Thanks to Driver Packs team and OverFlow for letting me use their version of fak e Setup.exe, original idea and authors- schalti, Pyron, a06lp and iLE Thanks to Bean123, who helped with grubinst.exe and touchdrv.exe and Tynibit for his excellent support with grub4dos issues. And last but not least credits to creators of all tools, which were used in this project- Grub4DOS, PEtoUSB, HP USB format utility, HDHacker, SysLinux, binifix. cmd(did I mention Jaclaz, cdob and wimb?), QEMU, DRVLoad ,sync.exe and spdrvscn from Vernalex. The program is released "as is" and is free for redistribution, use or changes a s long as original author, credits part and link to the support forumhttp://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-from-USB-f157.html are clearly mentioned. Author does not take any responsibility for use or misuse of the program! ================================================================================ ================================= How to start1. First make sure you have a properly formatted USB disk or flash media. It must have MBR and active partition set. a) USB flash media- format it with PEtoUSB in FAT16 or FAT16x (LBA checked) for partitions up to 2GB. This will preserve all partition information. If your media is above 2GB you will have to use FAT32- use HP USB disk format to ol. Note that it will DELETE all partitions and create a single one, occupying t he whole disk. NTFS is reported faster on some systems, your USB stick parameter s are also factor. Whereas NTFS generally is not recommended for USB flash media , if you are not planning excessive usage, but rather occasional installs from i t, then it should be safe to use it as long as you can boot from it. There is another way to format USB flash media- to use filter driver, such as Hi tachi microdrive filter driver or dummydisk.sys (included, look in FILES\MULTIpa rtitionUSBstick folder). Using such driver will 'make' your stick to appear to W indows as fixed disk. In this case, when formatting Windows will write MBR on in with partition information. You may now use Disk management console, or third party programs to make multipl e partitions and format them as you desire. Usually NTFS performs way faster on some systems, or with some USB sticks. Howev er, keep in mind that depending on usage and USB stick quality, it may "wear it out" quicker. !!!Make sure you set an active partition, either from Disk management, or from y our favourite external program.!!! !!!Use primary partitions when placing Windows based sources!!! !!!Usew first partition when copying Windows Setup!!!

b) USB hard disk- format it from Windows and make sure you set active partition! !! In both cases USB boot is not guaranteed! That depends on your BIOS/motherboard, how disk is formatted and what file system etc. In general FAT16 is the best bet for compatibility, next is FAT32, then NTFS. In some cases different format tools may set improper geometry. Look here for some detailed answers: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.net/Projects/USB/USBstick.html http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.net/Projects/USB/USBfaqs.html 2. Select your sources a) Windows- select the folder, which contains I386/AMD64 folders. !!!If you used Nlite to slim it down, option "Operating System Options-->Manual Install and Upgrade for removal" must NOT be selected. This is crucial part.!!! Optionally: b) BartPE/WinBuilder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC- select the folder, which contains I386 fo lder. !!!In case of WinFLPC keep in mind that BOOT.INI on destination disk wll be set incorrectly!!! In order to start it for a first time, either edit in BOOT.INI di sk(z) to disk(z-1) from BartPE for example, or add this to menu.lst on the activ e partition of the USB disk #### title Start WinFLPC map (hd1) (hd0) map --hook rootnoverify (hd0,0) chainloader /ntldr ### Above example assumes WinFLPC is on first partition of your first internal disk. Ammend accordingly. Once in WinFLPC, edit BOOT.INI on the internal disk as was mentioned above: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows FPLC" /FASTDETECT to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows FPLC" /FASTDETECT c) Vista setup- select the folder with BOOT and SOURCES folders. d) GParted- where file gparted.dat (for 0.3.4-8) or folder LIVE (for 0.3.6-7, 0. 3.7-7 and 0.3.9-4) are. To gather files needed, download LiveCD or LiveUSB makin g sure it's supported version from here: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php and extract the file to some folder. Point the program to that folder. Later on support for PartedMagic will be added, as soon as version 3 is out. e) SysLinux- select your Linux distro, which boots off SysLinux. All files/folde rs will be copied. A file(syslin.dat), containing Syslinux bootsector will be ma de, and an entry in the boot menu (menu.lst), pointing to that file will be made . In case you do not select anything only syslin.dat and ldlinux.sys will be cop ied, plus entry in menu.lst. !!! Make sure you have not already added another source, which contains the same folders in root as the ones from Vista, UBCD4Win etc. The program will NOT over write files/folders.!!! !!! SysLinux cannot be started from NTFS formatted partition !!! 3. Select target disk from the drop-down menu. Windows Setup can be started only from the first partition on the disk! It does not have to be active. Sorry, thi s is limitation from Microsoft- in case of removable USB disk, it can't read any partition than first.

If a) b) c) d)

your USB disk is not shown then: It's not inserted It does NOT have an active partition It's NOT formatted in FAT16,FAT32 or NTFS The program has a bug :) Please report details.

Optional settings: 4. Force target disk type(FIXED/REMOVABLE)- usually the program will detect that for you. Force selection only if you are using filter driver as above mentioned dummydisk.sys or Hitachi microdrive filter driver. Or if for some reason the pr ogram did not detect it correctly. This is an important part when installing Win dows XP/2kX from USB hard disks, or USB flash media, which is seen by Windows as FIXED. 5. Copy Setup boot files only- this option will copy just a minimal set of files (7-12MB), necessary for the first part(Text mode) of the setup. Use to test how your USB disk boots, before copying the main part. !!!DO NOT continue setup, you have to stop when you see the list of hard disks d etected!!! 6. Test in QEMU- this will launch QEMU virtual machine, which will use your USB disk as it's internal disk. You may use that as a basic test how the build went. Note that this not guarantees you the same result on real hardware. !!! Currently it's setup to use 256MB RAM when started. Make sure you have at le ast that amount + some extra RAM available!!! !!!USE AT OWN RISK. DO NOT PERFORM WRITE OPERATIONS WHILE IN QEMU!!! 7. BOOT.INI adjustments a) First field is the directory name, where Windows will be installed to. b) 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. c) Partition number- in which partition of the above selected disk Windows will be installed to. d) Additional entries in BOOT.INI- as above, but creates additional lines in BOO T.INI with the specified data. Use it if you plan to install Windows to disks/pa rtition/directories other than the ones above. This data will be used to create BOOT.INI on the USB disk, with the correct sett ings. It will be used to start the second part (GUI mode) of setup, AND to start Windows for first time, still using the USB disk as boot device. !!!Make sure the above entries are correct, otherwise you will get error message s like "HAL.DLL/NTOSKRNL.EXE was not found" I need to stress on that- make sure BOOT.INI data is correct, and DO NOT UNPLUG the USB disk until you enter first normal Windows desktop. 8) Press GO button, you have guessed that :) You have 3 steps, in all USB stick is your boot device (change that preferably i n BIOS): -Text mode part of setup -GUI mode part of setup -First start of Windows !!!If your source is NOT Windows XP2 SP2, some of the compressed files in ~LS fo lder will be deleted during the first part(Text mode). To make another install f rom this disk you have to copy the missing files, use the program for this purpo se and follow the prompts when it finds existing setup folders.!!!

!!!If you are getting Blue screen with 0x0000007B error during start of Text mod e setup or BartPE/WinBuilder..., read A3: http://www.msfn.org/board/FAQs-t116766.html and make sure you have a driver for your mass storage (SATA/AHCI/SCSI/RAID) cont roller in your source. ================================================================================ ======= Some advanced features of the program: - supports multiple Windows XP/2kX sources in the same partition (up to 10). Exi sting folders ~BT and ~LS and TXTSETUP.SIF will be renamed, and SETUPLDR.BIN and SETUPDD.SYS patched against the new names. Checksum checks are also corrected. - supports booting BartPE/WinBulder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC from different partitions. Multiple BartPE for example in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Neither is the mix of them on a single partition. - supports booting Vista setup from different partitions. Multiple Vista sources in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Place your second Vista setup in anoth er partition. It can be placed on any primary partition. - UBCD4Win boot menu is adjusted to boot from the selected partition. It can be placed on any primary partition. - if Windows setup folders (~BT and ~LS) and txtsetup.sif coexist in the same pa rtition as BartPE/WinBuilder/UNCD4Win/WinFLPC, SETUPLDR.BIN of the latter is pat ched not to use txtsetup.sif in root. Checksum checks are also corrected. - grub4dos is the main bootloader/manager. Without it's advanced features, multi ple partitions will not be easily achieved. Bootsector loading GRLDR is installed in the active partition of the selected di sk. Hence the requirement for active partition and MBR. - detailed log file is created in the folder, where program is executed from. Us e it for troubleshooting. Upon next execution if log file is found, it's compres sed in MS cab format, removed to BACKUPS folder and renamed with current DATE/TI ME stamp. - upon installing grub4dos bootsector, backup of MBR and bootsector with DATE/TI ME stamp are placed in BACKUPS folder. Us it in case something goes wrong. - if in Windows source folder winnt.sif or unattend.txt are found they will be u sed as answer file. Section UNATTENDED will be temporarily removed, only for the Text part of setup, and before start of GUI mode it will be merged back. PRESET UP.CMD is used for this purpose. - Windows source will be copied as followseverything in I386/AMD64 folders. BTS drivers pack OEM folder $OEM$ folder CMPNENTS folder PRINTERS folder If you want to slim down your source, do it prior to launching the progr am. Again- option "Operating System Options-->Manual Install and Upgrade for rem oval" must NOT be selected! !!! Do NOT replace completely WINNT.SIF in ~BT folder when the program completed . If you need to add extra entries- do so, but make sure you don't break what ha s been done to it. Do NOT add UNATTENDED section, if you need to make these chan ges in ~LS\I386(AMD64)\tempunat.inf, which contains your unattended section and will be merged at start of GUI mode. - PE source will be copied as follows: everything in I386 copied as MININT folder Setup (WinFLPC) folder Programs(BartPE) or Program Files(WinBuilder/WinFLPC) folder IMAGES (UBCD4Win) folder CMDC copied as CMDCONS (UBCD4Win)

- Vista source entire contents of the selected folder will be copied to root of the selected partition GParted and Syslinux were mentioned above. - From previous version of USB_multiboot and USB_prepare, undoren.cmd and binifi x.cmd(thanks Jaclaz) were merged. Some still applicable FAQs: http://www.msfn.org/board/FAQs-t116766.html Please report bugs(include your log file) or feature requests here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-from-USB-f157.html There are no plans (for now) for detailed guide with screenshots. When in doubt point your mouse over object and read the tooltip. Or ask for help in MSFN subfo rum. Good luck :)