[SOLVED] Run Windows XP from usb drive

[Alexde24]

Before starting: I tried Win2Usb and Easy2Boot already
Win2Usb gives a bootloader error before starting and Easy2Boot boots the ISO file with the virtual hdd instead of setup
I already tried Windows 7-10 and they work but the "Starting Windows" takes too much time (more than 30 min)

NOTE: I do NOT want a Windows installer,I want the entire windows to boot from usb drive

I have a MSI GX60 1AC (with windows 8.1) and my display got cracked because of me. Then I used a TV(through HDMI,1360x768) for windows and it worked like a charm. But after ~8hrs of playing i started to hear hdd sounds but I ignored it. The next day I boot my laptop a BSOD appears (cannot say the error because everything before windows logon is on the laptop screen)and then the laptop restarts.After the second BSOD I could barely read "repair" and I thought this is my chance of (blindly) repairing my HDD.After 20 minutes of waiting and hdd sounds it loaded but I tried everything and nothing worked so I dumped the idea of hdd repair.

After some research i found out that I could use a USB drive to boot windows directly.

Is there any way of putting Windows XP and booting it from a flash drive?

Edit: I have a TOSHIBA 64GB USB Drive (2.0)

 

[Alabalcho]

Get a new HDD/SSD. 128GB SSDs can be found for under $30. You cant run XP off USB. Even OSes capable of running off USB are slow, especially on old hardware,

 

[TerryLaze]

Xp can be made to run from USB but it's a lot of hassle and not guaranteed.

Since you have a big USB drive you can go with anything from windows 7 and up,those were made to start from usb as well.
You can use imagex to transfer the installation.wim from a installation usb/dvd to a USB,that's basically the same thing as the copying files part of the installation does,so after doing that at first boot it will make the final configurations on the target system.
All you need is imagex you can download gigabytes of stuff from MS to get it,or you can search for imagex alone on the web.
GimageX is a graphics user interface version of it so go with that for ease of use.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744531(v=ws.10).aspx
The only command needed is this one.
(Of course you'll have to make sure that the USB drive has an active and bootable partition)
imagex /apply N:\Images\my-windows-partition.wim 1 W:\

All you have to do is change the drive letters, if your dvd or mounted iso is D:
and the target USB is E:
you use
imagex /apply D:\sources\install.wim 1 E:
Make triple sure that you use the proper drive letter for the target, all data on that disk will be destroyed.

With gimagex just go to the Apply tab and select the source and destination,on the info tab you can see which number is which option in case you have a multi version disk.

Make a folder with all the drivers on the USB,or at least the ethernet/wifi driver so you can have internet and download the rest, so they will be available to you after its booted up and your done.

As stated first make sure to make the drive primary and active so that it will start up when you put it into the other system, any common free partition software can do that, even diskpart which is a part of windows.

 

[Alexde24]

Gave up about xp and just installed a small linux(Ubuntu). and it works fine (with some freezes)
@Alabalcho I tried to make this w/o buying anything but looks like it's impossible.Thanks for the idea though!
@TerryLaze None of the drivers that I wanted (even the ethernet one) aren't xp compatible so I gave up on that too.
Also,it's kinda strange since my hdd has only 52 bad sectors.
Still can't install anything on it though 🙁 .

 

[Zapper1975]

Gave up about xp and just installed a small linux(Ubuntu). and it works fine (with some freezes)
@Alabalcho I tried to make this w/o buying anything but looks like it's impossible.Thanks for the idea though!
@TerryLaze None of the drivers that I wanted (even the ethernet one) aren't xp compatible so I gave up on that too.
Also,it's kinda strange since my hdd has only 52 bad sectors.
Still can't install anything on it though 🙁 .

Hey try reformating the hard drive use gparted from linix live while hard drive is installed. Primary partitions are important that is how I solved the problem loading in windows 7 from an optical disk I kept getting :




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'No device drivers were found. Make sure the installation media contain the correct drivers, and then click OK

Gave up about xp and just installed a small linux(Ubuntu). and it works fine (with some freezes)
@Alabalcho I tried to make this w/o buying anything but looks like it's impossible.Thanks for the idea though!
@TerryLaze None of the drivers that I wanted (even the ethernet one) aren't xp compatible so I gave up on that too.
Also,it's kinda strange since my hdd has only 52 bad sectors.
Still can't install anything on it though 🙁 .