Question Old computer doesn't see bootable Windows XP flash drive ?

[kernan]

i made a Windows XP bootable flash drive but I can't open Windows XP install from boot menu on the old computer.

On my own computer i can enter the Windows install menu from the boot menu
but the old computer doesn't open from bootable file.

The old computer has antiX Linux OS and when i connect flash drive to it I can view the flash drive
but I can't enter from boot menu. I change boot menu option from bios. disable hard drive, floppy-disk drive and others, just leaving usb drive enabled. After restart it said this is not a bootable device, but I can enter Windows XP install menu from boot menu on my own computer. pls help me

my flash 16(14.2) GB
NTFS (I also tried fat32)
MBR

the old computer
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 500MB
HDD: 80GB (c 37, d 40)
OS: antiX Linux

 

[Aeacus]

That kind of ancient PC only accepts ODD and FDD as bootable media. Meaning CD or floppy disc. Maybe even DVD.

 

[LuKaWin10]

That kind of ancient PC only accepts ODD and FDD as bootable media. Meaning CD or floppy disc. Maybe even DVD.

He should tell us what mobo he has and all the specs then we will get to knowing it. For example my old PC has 2 DVD/CD drives and it supports USB and DVD booting since it is a 2007 775 motherboard

 

[Aeacus]

For example my old PC has 2 DVD/CD drives and it supports USB and DVD booting since it is a 2007 775 motherboard

Well, good for you.

But OP did tell clearly that they can not boot Windows off from the USB drive. What else is there to troubleshoot about USB? 🤔

 

[stonecarver]

the old computer
CPU: Pentium 4
RAM: 500MB
HDD: 80GB (c 37, d 40)
OS: antiX Linux

I have a burning question? When the AntiX Linux was installed how was that implemented.
Meaning was that installed with a USB thumb drive or a CD.

Just trying to wrap my head around if your PC can and did boot and load the Linux off the USB drive. That would mean the PC at least is not the road block.

If so than the question is can XP in and by itself also work that way as well off a thumb drive?

 

[Aeacus]

Just trying to wrap my head around if your PC can and did boot and load the Linux off the USB drive. That would mean the PC at least is not the road block.

It's not as much the issue of PC itself (hardware), but instead Win XP (software).

Win XP installation package doesn't have USB drivers. As soon as BIOS executes bootloader/whatever and the then switches to Windows boot, your boot device is lost, and that's it.

To get WinXP installed, a heavy patching of install image is required, there might be some help on Google for that. Or you need to use a native SATA or PATA based CD-ROM to install, and then install USB drivers in normal way.

Source: https://superuser.com/questions/1338540/windows-xp-install-using-usb-not-booting

When to think about it, 🤔 emulating WinXP under VM would be far easier than trying to install it over USB, which it wasn't designed for.

 

[stonecarver]

That kind of ancient PC only accepts ODD and FDD as bootable media. Meaning CD or floppy disc. Maybe even DVD.

So it's not the PC or XP.

Here is a working solution showing it being done.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMq0KfjOCpc

 

[kernan]

So it's not the PC or XP.

Here is a working solution showing it being done.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMq0KfjOCpc

It's not as much the issue of PC itself (hardware), but instead Win XP (software).



Source: https://superuser.com/questions/1338540/windows-xp-install-using-usb-not-booting

When to think about it, 🤔 emulating WinXP under VM would be far easier than trying to install it over USB, which it wasn't designed for.

So it's not the PC or XP.

Here is a working solution showing it being done.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMq0KfjOCpc

ty stonecarver I have tried it already. it is work (for others computer)
but on that old pc i can see flash drive name on hard drive list on bios. but when i boot flash not open, when i disable others boots. its say No bootable device found.​

Aeacus i burn xp to cd. it is work on my pc but, when i try to insert cd to that pc, i relise cd/dvd drive not work((((​

do u know why it not detect xp on flash?
do u have any idea. can i install xp to external hard disk on my pc and mount it that pc?

​

 

[kernan]

He should tell us what mobo he has and all the specs then we will get to knowing it. For example my old PC has 2 DVD/CD drives and it supports USB and DVD booting since it is a 2007 775 motherboard

what specs do u have to learn for help

 

[kernan]

I have a burning question? When the AntiX Linux was installed how was that implemented.
Meaning was that installed with a USB thumb drive or a CD.

Just trying to wrap my head around if your PC can and did boot and load the Linux off the USB drive. That would mean the PC at least is not the road block.

If so than the question is can XP in and by itself also work that way as well off a thumb drive?

first mount iso to flash with rufus.
plug and boot flash from boot menu
antix linux start itself as OS(it start as antix linux os. not antix installer )
u can install antix with installer icon on desktop

i think different is that antix start os, xp on flash start installer(((

 

[LuKaWin10]

Well, good for you.

But OP did tell clearly that they can not boot Windows off from the USB drive. What else is there to troubleshoot about USB? 🤔

Yeah, good for me, but I only gave out an example. No need to offend or argue with anyone!!

 

[LuKaWin10]

what specs do u have to learn for help

P35-DS3 rev 2.1
ASUS 1814BL and E616A3 (i think) DVD drives. Both are connected by IDE

 

[LuKaWin10]

first mount iso to flash with rufus.
plug and boot flash from boot menu
antix linux start itself as OS(it start as antix linux os. not antix installer )
u can install antix with installer icon on desktop

i think different is that antix start os, xp on flash start installer(((

Try burning the CD to ImgBurn. Get a different ISO. But tell us your motherboard so I know what SATA/IDE controller you have so you can maybe inject files for SATA to install XP.

 

[LuKaWin10]

ty stonecarver I have tried it already. it is work (for others computer)​

but on that old pc i can see flash drive name on hard drive list on bios. but when i boot flash not open, when i disable others boots. its say No bootable device found.​

Aeacus i burn xp to cd. it is work on my pc but, when i try to insert cd to that pc, i relise cd/dvd drive not work((((​

do u know why it not detect xp on flash?
do u have any idea. can i install xp to external hard disk on my pc and mount it that pc?

​

Well maybe try a different CD. What CD did you use and what DVD/CD drive do you have so I can see what DVD/CD it supports natively?

 

[stonecarver]

i burn xp to cd. it is work on my pc but, when i try to insert cd to that pc, i relise cd/dvd drive not work((((

Sometimes you have to get creative to not let the computer win.

Borrow the CD/DVD drive from the other computer you burned the Installer for XP on and hook it to the problem PC your trying to get your XP on.

I know , I know it's going to be a road block as I bet one CD/DVD is SATA and the issue one is IDE but if the stars line up I hope your good on the interface matching.

 

[Aeacus]

@Aeacus i burn xp to cd. it is work on my pc but, when i try to insert cd to that pc, i relise cd/dvd drive not work((((

ODDs do fail over time. So, when you have old unit, you may need to replace it with new one.

What stonecarver said should work, borrowing the known to work ODD from 2nd PC, to read the burnt disc.

do u know why it not detect xp on flash?

I did wrote it. Win XP does not have USB drives in it's installer. And your MoBo may not support USB bootable drives at all.

first mount iso to flash with rufus.
plug and boot flash from boot menu
antix linux start itself as OS(it start as antix linux os. not antix installer )
u can install antix with installer icon on desktop

i think different is that antix start os, xp on flash start installer(((

What you did to install GNU/Linux, is 1st loading entire OS to RAM, where OS can boot off. Once you're booted into GNU/Linux, you then can install it on HDD.
I have the very same bootable USB drive but i have Linux Mint on it.

Windows does not have this handy feature where it 1st loads itself into RAM and then boots from the RAM. With Windows, you have to run the installation media.

1st, try swapping the working ODD over to install WinXP.

If that fails, well, one option would be installing WinXP onto other machine and then transfer the HDD with installed WinXP over, but that can lead to all sort of issues. But the idea would be, that if you then somehow manage to boot into WinXP, then install WinXP again when booted into it.
Now, i can't recall if this was possible back in WinXP days. It has been may years since. But this does work with Win7/10/11.

I know , I know it's going to be a road block as I bet one CD/DVD is SATA and the issue one is IDE but if the stars line up I hope your good on the interface matching.

There are SATA to PATA adapters out there, that OP can look towards to.

 

[BFG-9000]

I have never seen a Pentium 4 computer with native USB 2.0 that could not boot from USB. There were certainly USB 1.1 ones that could not. OP says the BIOS lists the USB-HDD in the boot selection and can even boot the antiX live USB, but when attempting to boot from the custom XP installer, displays "no bootable device found."

Given that XP never came on a bootable USB, some 3rd party program had to be used to convert the iso to bootable USB and probably some settings used were not correct, such as GPT (which would boot fine on a UEFI machine but not a legacy BIOS one). If you insist, try a 2GB flash drive formatted in MBR and FAT16.

The interesting thing about XP setup is you can start it from DOS. So unless you want to hunt down and configure DOS USB drivers on your floppy disk (with autoexec.bat and all that), just copy the \i386 folder to the HDD using your live linux, then boot to DOS floppy, browse to C:\i386 and run winnt.exe to launch XP setup. This has the side benefit of XP never again asking you to insert the install CD.

Or if you have an external SATA enclosure don't bother putting a HDD in it--put in the DVD burner you used to burn the iso and boot from USB-optical. XP was intended to be installed from CD (it later came on DVD with extras) because unlike 9x it would've taken over 400 floppies to hold the setup files. For comparison Windows 98 came on 39 floppy disks. And the speed of a floppy drive was 500kbps which is 0.5Mbps, so it would take awhile.

 

[kernan]

I have never seen a Pentium 4 computer with native USB 2.0 that could not boot from USB. There were certainly USB 1.1 ones that could not. OP says the BIOS lists the USB-HDD in the boot selection and can even boot the antiX live USB, but when attempting to boot from the custom XP installer, displays "no bootable device found."

Given that XP never came on a bootable USB, some 3rd party program had to be used to convert the iso to bootable USB and probably some settings used were not correct, such as GPT (which would boot fine on a UEFI machine but not a legacy BIOS one). If you insist, try a 2GB flash drive formatted in MBR and FAT16.

The interesting thing about XP setup is you can start it from DOS. So unless you want to hunt down and configure DOS USB drivers on your floppy disk (with autoexec.bat and all that), just copy the \i386 folder to the HDD using your live linux, then boot to DOS floppy, browse to C:\i386 and run winnt.exe to launch XP setup. This has the side benefit of XP never again asking you to insert the install CD.

Or if you have an external SATA enclosure don't bother putting a HDD in it--put in the DVD burner you used to burn the iso and boot from USB-optical. XP was intended to be installed from CD (it later came on DVD with extras) because unlike 9x it would've taken over 400 floppies to hold the setup files. For comparison Windows 98 came on 39 floppy disks. And the speed of a floppy drive was 500kbps which is 0.5Mbps, so it would take awhile.

ODDs do fail over time. So, when you have old unit, you may need to replace it with new one.

What stonecarver said should work, borrowing the known to work ODD from 2nd PC, to read the burnt disc.


I did wrote it. Win XP does not have USB drives in it's installer. And your MoBo may not support USB bootable drives at all.


What you did to install GNU/Linux, is 1st loading entire OS to RAM, where OS can boot off. Once you're booted into GNU/Linux, you then can install it on HDD.
I have the very same bootable USB drive but i have Linux Mint on it.

Windows does not have this handy feature where it 1st loads itself into RAM and then boots from the RAM. With Windows, you have to run the installation media.

1st, try swapping the working ODD over to install WinXP.

If that fails, well, one option would be installing WinXP onto other machine and then transfer the HDD with installed WinXP over, but that can lead to all sort of issues. But the idea would be, that if you then somehow manage to boot into WinXP, then install WinXP again when booted into it.
Now, i can't recall if this was possible back in WinXP days. It has been may years since. But this does work with Win7/10/11.


There are SATA to PATA adapters out there, that OP can look towards to.

Sometimes you have to get creative to not let the computer win.

Borrow the CD/DVD drive from the other computer you burned the Installer for XP on and hook it to the problem PC your trying to get your XP on.

I know , I know it's going to be a road block as I bet one CD/DVD is SATA and the issue one is IDE but if the stars line up I hope your good on the interface matching.

Well maybe try a different CD. What CD did you use and what DVD/CD drive do you have so I can see what DVD/CD it supports natively?

Thanks to everyone, i solved the problem.
I opened the case and installed the CD drive from another computer. That way, I installed Windows XP using a CD.