usb startup disk help needed

[Hrishia]

I want some help with making a usb startup disk. I want to format my pc by installing windows xp from scratch. Actually my optical drive has stopped working. While I am having a iso file of Windows xp on my system. I had never created a usb disk. I want to create a bootable xp pen drive. I found some article on web which were really long. And are done via some command line settings. Is there any automated tool available that can do the job.

[Winckle]

It is simple. The process that you are talking about is the most reliable way of installing windows xp form the pen drive. I do not trust on automated tools. There are ample of articles on web that offers you the detail process of creating a usb drive. You just need to copy appropriate files in the usb drive with proper boot loader and done. While you can simply install existing xp over the old one by double clicking on setup.exe file inside the iso.

[Bollea]

There is an automated software available on the web which can help you. It is called as WinToFlash. It can create a bootable windows xp drive for you. It is extremely easy to use and works same like a bootable cd. It is an executable file. You just need to provide the path for iso file and done. It will format your drive and copy all necessary stuff. I am using this always to format my pc. Compare to CD it works quiet faster.

[vshori]

I am also using WinFlash. It is a very nice utility. The tool only works fine if you format your drive as fat partition. Do not format it in ntfs. The system will not boot at all. WinFlash removes the problem of creating a manual installation process. If the installation crashes or has some issue try to clean format the drive and change the port. It must be detected inside the bios as a removable drive.

[vshori]

There is another helpful application that can help you here if fixing the problem you are facing. It is called as BartPE Builder. It is quiet easy to use and works mostly in command line. I am sure it will help you to get a proper bootable usb drive. You must try it out and then check back.