I was given a Dell Inspiron 910 Mini notebook that had a bad SSD. I removed the SSD and am now trying to install XP on a USB Flash instead of buying a new SSD, but I have to install from a 2nd USB Flash because this latop has no CD/DVD drive.
I followed a few different tutorials, first making a copy of XP that is capable of installing on a USB drive: http://www.ngine.de/article/id/8
Second, copying the ISO to a 4GB USB drive using usb_prep8: http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html
I have formatted the 2nd 8GB USB drive using HPUSBFW.exe as a NTFS drive.
When I boot the laptop with the XP Setup USB drive, I run txt based setup, it starts fine.
Setup shows the empty 8GB USB Drive as NTFS.
When I select the drive, hit enter, keep filesystem intact, I get a generic error saying that the drive is corrupt.
When I tried to format using setup, I get a slightly different generic error, but still says disk is corrupt and cannot format.
When I delete the partition, I can create a new one but cannot format the new partition, it says corrupt.
I have tried to format the empty drive as a FAT32 using HPUSBFW before starting XP setup, same errors.
As I have stated, my XP installation has been modified to install on USB Drives, and I have triple checked the 6 files I changed during that (the 3 .IN_ have all been repacked).
I made sure my ISO was saved properly in WINISO and mounted properly in D-tools before transfering to USB.
I have tried with different combinations of USB Flash Drives and USB Hard Drives of varying sizes.
I am using XP Pro SP3 March 2011 build.
Please help solve the disk corruption error as I do not want to spend any money on this if possible.
I followed a few different tutorials, first making a copy of XP that is capable of installing on a USB drive: http://www.ngine.de/article/id/8
Second, copying the ISO to a 4GB USB drive using usb_prep8: http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html
I have formatted the 2nd 8GB USB drive using HPUSBFW.exe as a NTFS drive.
When I boot the laptop with the XP Setup USB drive, I run txt based setup, it starts fine.
Setup shows the empty 8GB USB Drive as NTFS.
When I select the drive, hit enter, keep filesystem intact, I get a generic error saying that the drive is corrupt.
When I tried to format using setup, I get a slightly different generic error, but still says disk is corrupt and cannot format.
When I delete the partition, I can create a new one but cannot format the new partition, it says corrupt.
I have tried to format the empty drive as a FAT32 using HPUSBFW before starting XP setup, same errors.
As I have stated, my XP installation has been modified to install on USB Drives, and I have triple checked the 6 files I changed during that (the 3 .IN_ have all been repacked).
I made sure my ISO was saved properly in WINISO and mounted properly in D-tools before transfering to USB.
I have tried with different combinations of USB Flash Drives and USB Hard Drives of varying sizes.
I am using XP Pro SP3 March 2011 build.
Please help solve the disk corruption error as I do not want to spend any money on this if possible.