Install XP from USB AFTER Booting with PE from HDD or USB, Install from USB without Booting from USB by using U_XP_SET External links Rating Options

[wimb]

Hi wimb, I just tried to use your script to format a stick and the 'format stick' is greyed out.

For safety I have limited the Format Stick option to Removable Devices.
Your USB-stick is seen as Fixed as displayed in PeToUSB picture, so it is normal that Format Stick Button remains greyed out. The stick is seen as Fixed probably due to install of a filter driver. For Fixed disks you can also use Windows XP Disk Management.

[wimb]

Hi wimb, that did get rid of the errors and everything seems to work fine, I still can't boot from NTFS UFD (flashing cursor then reboot - no error) but as I said, probably my hardware??

Hi amalux,

Thanks for testing. Good to know that the program is OK now.

Unable to boot from NTFS UFD can indeed be hardware related.
Looking forward to see your results on other machines.

For the old Dell machines you might also try to use Make_USB_2.exe from USB_XP_Setup folder to prepare NTFS formatted USB-sticks with a second partition to improve bootability as reported by online for certain motherboards.

[wimb]

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PROGRAM UPDATE - U_XP_SET Package - Install XP from USB


Make_USB.exe and Make_USB_2.exe were updated.
The procedure of Format Stick Button will now make Bootable FAT and FAT32 USB-sticks.
For NTFS Format the procedure was already OK, but FAT32 and FAT sticks were NOT bootable.

After many experiments, I hope to have realized now a reliable procedure for all cases to make really bootable USB-sticks.
The procedure for FAT32 and FAT includes an essential Disconnect pop-up.

Please try and report about the new procedure.

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[maanu]

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PROGRAM UPDATE - U_XP_SET Package - Install XP from USB


Make_USB.exe and Make_USB_2.exe were updated.
The procedure of Format Stick Button will now make Bootable FAT and FAT32 USB-sticks.
For NTFS Format the procedure was already OK, but FAT32 and FAT sticks were NOT bootable.

After many experiments, I hope to have realized now a reliable procedure for all cases to make really bootable USB-sticks.
The procedure for FAT32 and FAT includes an essential Disconnect pop-up.

Please try and report about the new procedure.

new procedure ? how is it MORE bootable ,is it online's dual partitioning stuff ?
and there is same patched hp mbr ?

[wimb]

new procedure ? how is it MORE bootable ,is it online's dual partitioning stuff ?
and there is same patched hp mbr ?

The Format Stick routine was improved for FAT and FAT32 FileSystem,
by patching after Format two important bytes which determine bootability of USB-stick.

• MBR - Reset FAT FileSystem byte = 0E (LBA) at offset 0x1C2 in MBR, after format it was 06 (CHS) and not bootable
• FAT BootSector - drive-id patch 0x80 at offset 0x24 , after format it was 00 and Not bootable
• MBR - Reset FAT32 FileSystem byte = 0C (LBA) at offset 0x1C2 in MBR, after format it was 0B (CHS) and Not bootable
• FAT32 Bootsector - drive-id patch 0x80 at offset 0x40 , after format it was 00 and Not bootable

FAT and FAT32 USB-stick are NOT bootable without patching these two critical bytes, and flashing cursor or Disk Error would be the result. The problem is that Windows OS all the time tries to reset these bytes to NON-bootable value.
But this problem was overcome in the present procedure.

The HP Patch for MBR-code and the Patch to make second partition entry in Make_USB_2.exe have not been changed.

[cdob]

Make_USB.exe and Make_USB_2.exe were updated.
The procedure of Format Stick Button will now make Bootable FAT and FAT32 USB-sticks.

Make_USB_2.exe:

240 heads BIOS used, at least at internal hard disk.
There are unkonwn used heads at USB booting.

USB stick at 255/63 partitioned.


8 GB USB stick, FAT32, windows default bootsector:
no HP MBR: booting fails at MBR

with HP patched MBR: booting fails at bootsector: black screen, blinking underscore.
QEMU does boot this USB stick. QEMU does use 255 heads.

Next Bootsector noped, position 0xE6 to 0xE9
http://blog.clemens.endorphin.org/2007/12/...ndows_3170.html
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&...st&p=154139
Real machine and QEMU does boot 8 GB USB stick.


16 GB USB stick, FAT32, windows default bootsector:
without and with HP MBR patch: Real machine and QEMU does boot

[wimb]

@cdob

Interesting that patching of FAT32 Bootsector with NOP at Offset 0xE6 to 0xE9 solved this particular USB-stick booting problem.

How often does such exceptional BIOS occur ?

Did you try to format the stick with NTFS FileSystem,
which is preferred in performance over FAT32 ?
Is in case of NTFS BootSector patching with 4 NOP at Offset 0xD9 - 0xDC needed to make the stick bootable ?

Can you give for this case the makebt\dpusb.txt file as Attachment, which can be helpful to make a workaround in the program.

Or if you like, you can try to modify the program code to a working solution.

EDIT: I just tried to patch FAT32 BootSector with 4 NOP bytes on a stick not having boot problem.
The stick is still bootable, which means that may be we can use the 4x NOP Patch as a general option to be applied to the FAT32 BootSector of USB-sticks.
I can change the program so that such 4x NOP patch will be applied to the BootSector if desired.

[cdob]

How often does such exceptional BIOS occur ?

240 heads BIOS is used at HP and IBM/Lenovo notebooks.
However a average windows user dosn't know this.
Adjust a search strings therefore.
Search for
thinkpad 240 heads
/dev/hda 240 heads
/dev/sda 240 heads

Examples:
http://nstrom.googlepages.com/n3110.html
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_G...inkPad_R51-1830

Did you try to format the stick with NTFS FileSystem,
which is preferred in performance over FAT32 ?

No I didn'try NTFS yesterday, here you go:

Make_USB_2.exe, 8 GB USB stick, NTFS:
with HP patched MBR: booting fails at bootsector: black screen, blinking underscore.
QEMU does boot this USB stick.

Next the NTFS bootsector noped: position 0xD9 to 0xDC
The real machine and QEMU does boot 8 GB USB stick.

dousb.txt

Disk: 0 Size: 153G CHS: 20673 240 63

Disk: 1 Size: 7.7G CHS: 983 255 63
Pos MBRndx Type/Name Size Active Hide Start Sector Sectors DL Vol Label
--- ------ ---------- ---- ------ ---- ------------ ------------ -- ----------
0 0 07-NTFS 7.7G Yes No 63 15,711,507 H: BOOT_USB

16 GB USB stick, NTFS:
without and with HP MBR patch: Real machine and QEMU does boot


2 GB USB stick, NTFS:
Real machine does boot.
QEMU fails at bootsector: A disk read error occurred - Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

Next the NTFS bootsector noped: position 0xD9 to 0xDC
The real machine and QEMU does boot 2 GB USB stick.

[wimb]

@cdob
Thanks a lot for all info and NTFS Boot results.

I will change Make_USB.exe to add option such that 4x NOP patch can be applied to the FAT32 and NTFS BootSector.
It is an interesting improvement and thanks to you has proven to be useful.

[wimb]

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PROGRAM UPDATE - U_XP_SET Package - Install XP from USB

Make_USB.exe was updated.
The Format Stick procedure includes now all patches found useful by cdob and online for making bootable USB-sticks. Thanks for testing

CHS Knock-out Patches and Make Second Dummy Partition are user Selectable and involve:

1. Apply HP Patch to USB-stick MBR Code for CHS Knock-out
2. Apply 4x NOP Patch to FAT32 and NTFS BootSector for CHS Knock-out
3. Make Second Partition - 40 MB FAT32 as Dummy

Please try and report about bootability of USB-sticks made with the Format Stick procedure of Make_USB.exe

So forget about Make_USB_2.exe since now everything is included in Make_USB.exe