Installing Vista from USB Device.

[Dane]

Alright, so I have a new, high speed. USB Flash Drive. OCZ ATV 4 Gig flash drive.

http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!...!1665.entry

This guy from microsoft has in his post the way to do it.

I didn't format it, since it already is.

I did this however

3. Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

Simply issue the following command to start copying all the content from the Windows Vista DVD to your newly formatted high speed flash drive.

* xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (changed it to my drives)

And that's it. Boot up the machine, have it boot off the USB drive, and watch how fast the installation completes. If you thought Windows Vista installed quickly before then let's see how you like it now. The slowest part of the install will probably be the computer waiting for you to type in information in the setup fields

I go to boot off the USB device only to have it say "No operating system" Am I missing something here?

What could I have missed or need to do?

Edit: found on another site it says this MUST be down on a computer currently running vista because you have to do a diskpart and XP wont do anything with it, but within vista it will.

Edited October 9, 2008 by Dane

[Kami-]

Don't you need to be using Vista when you make the flashdisk?

[Dane]

Don't you need to be using Vista when you make the flashdisk?

yeah I edited that into my first post after I found that out.

I find it funny the guy at Microsoft didn't put that into his blog about it, but I found out about it else where.

[Kami-]

At least you got it working? ;)

It is huge amounts faster than a DVD ^^

[Dane]

At least you got it working? ;)

It is huge amounts faster than a DVD ^^

I haven't install vista yet. I don't currently have vista installed to make the drive work. I might go over to my friends house either today or tomorrow they have vista running, so i could take my dvd with and make it there.

That should work I think, otherwise I could install vista first make it and find out if it works lol

[Kami-]

lol =]

[FiB3R]

I'm about to reinstall Vista on my HTPC, so I might give this a go, just for ****s and giggles.

[ToneKnee]

Can this be done on Windows XP? If so, can someone give me a link to a site or tell me how to do it please? I want to do this before I install Vista again! :)

Thank you!

[Kami-]

You need make USB in Vista sry :(

[ToneKnee]

It's okay people! I've found a way to get round the problem. I basically installed Windows Server 2008 on a VM using VirtualBox and have done it that way! Hehe! :D

[Dane]

It's okay people! I've found a way to get round the problem. I basically installed Windows Server 2008 on a VM using VirtualBox and have done it that way! Hehe! :D

I didn't think of that. I could use vista in virtual pc, not enter my key install it. make the drive in there. i think i can do that anyways.

Good luck!

Actually is that even possible to use a USB flash drive in virtual pc?

Edited October 10, 2008 by Dane

[ToneKnee]

I didn't think of that. I could use vista in virtual pc, not enter my key install it. make the drive in there. i think i can do that anyways.

Good luck!

Actually is that even possible to use a USB flash drive in virtual pc?

Basically what I did was this:

Opened up the device manager in Windows XP, went to Disk Management, deleted the current partition on the USB Flash (was NTFS).

I then went on to format the drive to 'Fat32' then I started up a Virtual VM using VirtualBox.

Once Windows 2008 was loaded, I told VB told to open use the Flash Drive and Windows 2008 detected it within Windows as a proper USB storage device.

I then went into the device manager (I'm not sure if you can do this on Windows XP, but I thought I would leave half of the instructions in the first post's url for Windows 2008) and set the partition to 'Active' on the USB flash storage.

I then opened up the Command prompt using Administrator priviliages and executed the 'xcopy' command which was explained in the first post.

The files then copied from the DVD/(ISO I used which was mounted via VB).

After the files were completed, I hit the 'Safely remove hardware' function from within Windows 2008, then told VB to disconnect the USB Flash storage from the VM, this caused the USB Flash Storage to reload from in Windows XP (Because, in VB, it removes the Flash Storage from Windows XP to stop any possible conflicts with the VM).

I checked the Flash Storage to find that all the files were loaded onto the device. I haven't yet tested this with restarting the computer since I'm downloading something big at the moment, but I'm quite positive that this method worked since all the files loaded properly from within Windows.

[Premgenius]

I followed this http://www.maximumpcguides.com/create-a-bo...-windows-vista/ and for the copying I used http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!...!1665.entry and for me the install worked fine, installed Vista Ultimate on my brothers PC in 12mins compared to 20mins on DVD

[Dane]

I followed this http://www.maximumpcguides.com/create-a-bo...-windows-vista/ and for the copying I used http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!...!1665.entry and for me the install worked fine, installed Vista Ultimate on my brothers PC in 12mins compared to 20mins on DVD

I was always told never to format a flash drive anything else but FAT 32, does it cause problems as anything else?

[mamamamamamama]

The thing is, you cannot set the partition on a usb pendrive as active in xp. Don't see why?

I guess it's because it shows up as a removable disk on xp. I wonder if i could change that?

Edited October 13, 2008 by mamamamamamama

[zape]

There are ways to make a drive (parition) bootable using 3rd party tools.

[ToneKnee]

There are ways to make a drive (parition) bootable using 3rd party tools.

Would you mind telling us which tools can do this please?

[mamamamamamama]

I wish there was an app that could "burn" any bootable iso onto a usb drive. That would be incredibly handy.

[Shadow Dragon]

Would you mind telling us which tools can do this please?

Well, I've made a lots of bootable SD-cards and USB sticks and the tool that has worked the best for me has to be "PeToUSB":

http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb

Of course this will only enable the drive to be "bootable" you'll need software that can be booted from as well for it to be useful.

[darkmanx21]

I just started doing this and I must say it saves a considerable amount of time when you do a couple of machines. It's fast, easy..and that key is more rugged.

[Kami-]

I followed this http://www.maximumpcguides.com/create-a-bo...-windows-vista/ and for the copying I used http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!...!1665.entry and for me the install worked fine, installed Vista Ultimate on my brothers PC in 12mins compared to 20mins on DVD

Nice... My install times are below:

DVD: 22 min(s)

USB: 8 min(s)

[BigBunny]

The easiest way to do this if you already have a Vista DVD is to first boot into the DVD > Repair my computer > command prompt. Plug in the USB thumb drive and use Diskpart to make it bootable:

diskpart

list disk

(find the number that corresponds to the flash drive)

select disk x

select partition 1

(assuming you already have one partition formatted on the drive)

active

exit

Then, you can use the xcopy command in the first post.

I thought that XP should be able to make any mass storage device bootable. You need to go into the Disk Management MMC snap-in: run compmgmt.msc, and select disk management. Right click on the partition and you should be able to select Active.

[zape]

Most disk partitioning software allow you to make a partition active and bootable.

[Dane]

Nice... My install times are below:

DVD: 22 min(s)

USB: 8 min(s)

Nice!

I haven't got anywhere where vista is install to make my usb.

So I could just do an Upgrade over XP to vista if it lets me. Then just wait to it boots make the USB and then reinstall that way.

i got a pm from a member saying that if you get an error after you install it and it boots just take out the usb flash drive and put it back in and it should work.

Anyone run into this problem?

[mamamamamamama]

I thought that XP should be able to make any mass storage device bootable. You need to go into the Disk Management MMC snap-in: run compmgmt.msc, and select disk management. Right click on the partition and you should be able to select Active.

The thing is, it refuses to mark a usb flash drive as active. It's got not problems with an external hdd connected over usb though...