In this evloving era where netbooks and ultra-portable laptops are gaining popularity,one might require to reinstall their OS but since these gadgets don’t have an optical drive the process would become cumbersome.We tech geeks at cshared have prepared a small tutorial to show you guys how to install windows xp/vista using USB flash drives.This method involves the use of a cool new reliable and fast program called “Komku“.

Requirements for the task:
1:Desktop/laptop/netbook.
2:The original Windows XP or Vista installation disk.
3:1 GB or 4 GB USB flash drive for Windows XP/Vista installation respectively.
4:Komku-SP-usb.exe software.

WINDOWS XP INSTALLATION USING USB DRIVE

Step 1: Download ‘Komku-SP-usb.exe’ and execute it.

Step 2: After extraction, goto the folder ‘C:komkuPeToUSB’ & execute the file ‘PeToUSB.exe’.Connect the USB flash drive and choose the following options (see image below) before clicking the start button. Select ‘USB removable’, ‘Enable Disk Format’, ‘Quick format’, ‘Enable LBA (Fat 16x)’ and finally give the drive a name under ‘Drive Label’. Once it’s done, click start to let the utility format the drive.

Step 3: Next open command prompt. Click ‘Start | Run’, type ‘cmd’ and press [Enter]. Then go to the ‘bootsect’ directory by typing the command ‘cd C:komkubootsect’ and pressing [Enter]. Now type the command ‘bootsect /nt52 H:’ and press [Enter]. (The ‘H:’ is the USB flash drive letter represented in ‘My Computer’. Check to verify the drive letter used by your USB flash drive). Let the utility do the needful. Do not exit the Command Prompt yet.

Step 4: Now you will need to change to the directory ‘Usb_Prep8’ by using the command ‘cd C:komkuusb_prep8’ and pressing [Enter].Execute the command ‘usb_prep8’ and press [Enter]. Press any key to continue and you will see a welcome screen with a menu appear in the Command Prompt.

Step 5: Now insert the Windows XP installation disk into your optical drive. At the Command Prompt menu, type ‘1’ and press [Enter]. A new popup will appear asking for the location (path) of the Windows installation disk. Select the optical drive and click ‘OK’. Next choose ‘2’ fr0m the menu and change the drive letter to any drive letter which has not been taken.

After that, choose option ‘3’ fr0m the menu and enter the drive letter of your USB flash drive (in this case it would be ‘H’). Finally choose ‘4’ fr0m the menu and press [Enter]. Wait for a few seconds for the process to complete and you will see a prompt to allow the utility to format the USB flash drive. Type ‘Y’ and then press [Enter].This process will take a few minutes depending on the speed of the flash drive .

Step 6: After the files are copied,a popup window will rise asking you for permission to copy files fr0m the temp drive to the USB flash drive. Select ‘Yes’.Next there will be another popup asking you to allow the utility to change the boot drive letter of the USB flash drive fr0m ‘H:’ to ‘U:’. Select ‘Yes’.

Step 7: Finally you will see yet another popup window asking if you want to unmount the virtual drive. Select ‘Yes’. Exit the Command Prompt now and you will see that your flash drive is ready to install Windows XP to another computer.

Now, your USB Flash Drive is ready…

Now comes the best part
To install Windows XP to the computer goto the BIOS and enable the option of booting fr0m a USB removable device under the boot sequence menu of the BIOS.Connect the USB drive to the computer.Now your computer will boot fr0m the USB flash drive and you are ready to install Windows XP. Follow the necessary steps to install Windows XP and your computer will be up and running Windows in a jiffy.

WINDOWS VISTA INSTALLATION USING USB DRIVE

Making a bootable windows vista flash drive is even simpler than making a bootable windows xp usb drive since this utility is already a built in function for windows vista.For this you will need to use a 4 GB pen drive.

Step 1: Start Windows Vista, insert the pen drive.Run Command Prompt, type ‘diskpart’ and press [Enter].

Step 2: Type ‘list disk’ and press [Enter] and note down the USB flash drive’s disk number listed here. In this case it would be ‘Disk 1’.Type ‘Select disk 1’ and press [Enter] then type ‘Clean’ and press [Enter]. Here the Diskpart utility is instructed to choose the disk 1 as the drive to be worked on and clears all the info of the volumes,boot sectors,partitions and MBR fr0m the flash drive.

Step 3: Type ‘Create partition primary’ and press [Enter]. This will create a primary partition on the USB flash drive.

Step 4: Type ‘Select partition 1’ and press [Enter]. This command instructs the Diskpart utility to select the newly created partition.

Step 5: Type ‘Active’ and press [Enter] and then type ‘Format fs=fat32’ and press [Enter]. This command formats the selected drive partition using the FAT32 file system.

Step 6: Type ‘Assign’ and press [Enter]. This command assigns next available drive letter to the newly formatted partition.( Let this be I: )

Step 7: Exit fr0m the Diskpart utility using the ‘exit’ command and pressing [Enter]. Now insert the Windows Vista DVD in the optical drive and type the command ‘xcopy I:*.* /s /e /f H:’ and press [Enter]. This command will copy entire contents of the Windows Vista DVD onto the USB flash drive.

Woala !!

Your USB drive is now ready to install Windows Vista on any computer.Don’t forget to set the boot sequence in the BIOS of the system to boot fr0m the USB.Then insert the USB drive and turn on the computer. Follow the regular installation procedures for Windows Vista.

Via (komku.blogspot.com)

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