HOW-TO: Install XP via ANY USB Key

I know this a much talked about topic on here, but as i trawled the guides i came up with ones that didn't work, others requiring U3 memory sticks which people (such as myself) might not have and other fun errors such as the hal.dll error, which while discussed is hard to find a definitive answer to.

The best way of avoiding this hal.dll error is to correctly install XP in the first place! So through a culmination of a few guides found online, sources from this forum, and a bit of my own knowledge, i have created the guide below that correctly and 100% successfully installs win XP onto both the aspire ones i own, without hiccups.

I'll also provide this guide in a PDF format for you to download and keep![Link now fixed! 20.08.10]
http://boringstories.co.uk/xpusb/How%20 ... %20Key.pdf

First up, we need to prepare the flash drive.
(the following steps need to be performed on a 32bit operating system)
1. Download and unzip this file, which should contain 2 folders: 1 titled Bootsect, and the other USB_prep8.Best place to unzip is to your desktop!
2. Navigate to the USB_prep8 folder and click on usb_prep8.cmd. This will bring up a Windows console window.
3. Press any key to continue and a PeToUSB window will open.
4. Make sure your flash drive is selected, and click start to format your flash drive.
5. When the format is complete, click OK, but do not close the PeToUSB window or the Windows Console.
6. Open a new console window by clicking on Start>run, and typing “cmd” into the run box.
7. Find your Bootsect folder (if you’re not used to DOS commands, you can type “dir” to list directories and files, type “cd foldername” to navigate to a folder name - called foldername in this example, and if there’s a long folder name you can save time by typing the “cd” and just the first few letters and then hitting the Tab key to fill in the rest of the name).To expand upon, the command prompt window will start at 'D:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]' type 'cd Desktop' [ENTER] and then 'cd flash' [TAB] this will auto complete the name and direct you to the flash prep 8 folder. Finally type 'cd bootsect' and you're in the bootsect folder.
8. Once you’re in the Bootsect folder, type “bootsect.exe /nt52 g:” if “g” is the letter assigned to your flash drive. If it’s E, then change the letter to e. If it’s Z, make it z. Get it?
9. When this is done, you should see a message letting you know that the bootcode was updated, and you can close this console window (but not the other console window).
10. Close the PeToUSb Window, but make sure not to close the remaining console window yet
11. You should now see a list of 8 options in the console.
12. Select one and find the drive with your Windows installation disc.
13. Select 2 and pick a random drive letter (but not one that’s already on your PC, since this will be a virtual drive used for copying your files).
14. Select 3 and enter the drive letter for your USB flash drive.
15. Select 4 and follow the rest of the on-screen directions and you should be all set.

The process should take about 15-20 minutes. When it’s done, you should have a bootable USB stick that you can use to install Windows XP the same way you would if you had a CD/DVD drive.

If you use NLite to shrink/slipstream/otherwise modify your Windows XP installation file, make sure you do not remove “manual installation files,” or your USB stick will be pretty much useless.

To install onto the acer:
Note:Before installation it is recommended that you turn of D2D Recovery in the bios. To do this turn on the acer and press f2 untill the bios loads, navigate to the correct part to set D2D recovery to DISABLED. Exit and save. Now you can install

1. Insert usb key, boot up the acer and press f12 to open the boot menu. Choose the USB key and select TEXT installation. Windows will load up the installer, remember to delete all the partitions on the main install drive ( this should be drive D:/). Press enter on this new big drive (should be 111gb).
2. The computer will install/ copy all the required files across and then reboot. You MUST AGAIN press f12 and boot from the usb key, this time selecting GUI installer. This will finish the installation and boot into windows.
3. YOU’RE Almost THERE!
4. BEFORE you reboot, you MUST edit the boot.ini file. To do this, open up my computer, and type in the navigation box ‘D:/boot.ini’. This will open a text file of the boot.ini file. You need to edit it so it looks like the example below:

Note: The only two changes that you should have to make is changing the number following the rdisk from 1 to 0.

5. Now remove your usb stick, reboot, and pray that it loads up win xp. (It’s worked fine for me now on every occasion so the praying bit isn’t necessary!)

Don't forget, now you have to install all the drivers! Available from the Acer website: http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/no ... e_150.html

Hope this proves helpful for new users!

Also if anyone has any ideas on how to improve upon i will gladly add them to the PDF files and this guide.

 

I still get a BSOD when the windows install tries to 'start windows'

 

What model / version and hardware spec A1 have you got?
Also what version of win xp are you trying to install? win XP SP2 works best.

Pm me if you need some help knowing what version it is that you have.

 

Thanks! This worked brilliantly for me.

Just trying to download the drivers from the slowest website in the world!

Cheers!

 

Should this be re-enabled after successful install?

 

No problem what soever, glad it worked for you and you enjoyed it, and yes that website is horrible, i got around 60kb/s, when im used to 1000!

I wouldnt personally. Truthfully i am not 100% sure what this is, however i believe it is a system whereby it creates a recovery partition on an unused part of you hard drive. However i do not know if this works on winxp installs, or just the linpus linux. However(2) there is a driver available from the acer website for win xp that takes advantage of the d2d system and as such may offer a way of creating a re-usable recovery partition, personally, i would consider running a partioning program such as partition magic after the install of win xp to split the hard drive, with storing all programs and documents on the partition not associated with the windows installation. This way if winxp ever goes tits up, reinstall into the windows installation partition, and you can still gain access to your documents as the other partion is untouched. Another way of saving this stuff though, would be to take advantage of the SD card reader, will hold your documents / drivers / programs and games im sure. My movies however take up a bit of space!

 

Hey guys been reading through these forums for the past week or so since i got my "AA1" as you cool kids are calling it, .

So anyway enough small talk lets get down to business... Lin"Puss" linux is a disease and i must eradicate it from my AA1..
I've read through a few different guides and it all seems pretty straight forward...however i hit an immediate stumbling block when i hit this step:
4. Make sure your flash drive is selected, and click start to format your flash drive.

I have tried 3 different flash drives: 1 4gb ByteStor, 1 Kingston DataTravellerII 1gb, and some namless 1gb that i got free with something and i cant seem to get PeToUSB to recognise any of them. Having read a bit deeper i think the 4gb drive can be counted out cus its to big... i see on the first prep screen it says to use a 2gb flash drive does it have to be exactly 2 gbs? cus i dont be having one of them... i know there pennies to buy but its a bit of a pain considering i already have 3 flash drives as is.

So thats the backstory my questions are: Am i just unlucky and none of my flash drives are any use or am i missing something somewhere? Is there any other way round it short of buying yet another flash drive to sit and collect dust.

Does it have anything to with the fact i'm using Vista on my main computer rather than XP.. a wild stab in the dark i know but i'm running out of ideas...infact thinking about that one i'm sure i could count that out myself a Command Prompt is a command prompt whether it be 98 XP or Vista... right?

IF i have to buy another flash drive can some of u guys tell me ones u have used with success please.

Many Thanks
Tim

 

I would guess that it's Vista-related issues. I installed WinXP SP3 this way using a very old (8MB/s read) 1GB Maxell-branded stick that shows up as "Generic USB Drive" when I boot.

***

I have problems installing XP using my U3 stick/method, but this did work. I went for NTFS but XP is not optimal, and before trying to shut off SSD writing, I would like to try FAT32. When I used this method, I ended up with my SSD as D:....is this always the case using this method or did I miss something?

 

Unfortunately yes, as the USB stick is designated as 'C' and the local disk is always 'D', a pain in the arse, but at least it works i allways thought

 

What size USB memory stick did I need to complete this process?

 

One big enough to hold your installation disc, so for xp a 1gb version would be fine.
I used a 2gb, you will need an 8gb for vista however.

With the prices as they are these days may as well get a nice big one anyways!

 

I just used a 1gb stick bought for a few quid from argos.

 

My AA1 froze then crashed while playing a game (real War) After that I could not get Windows to Boot up. So I followed this tutorial and got to end of installing XP (used the unoffical Acer Aspire One recovery disk ISO found on these boards and I get this Message.

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.


How would I go about fixing this? Thanks in advance for any help.

UPDATE: somehow i figured it out. Not sure what I did but I went back and redid the second half of the instalation and fixed the problem. Now off to update and download drivers.

 

Just a quick update guys. I managed to get the flash drive setup on an XP computer as advised it was a Vista issue...Now new problem,

step 12: Select one and find the drive with your Windows installation disc.

I'm using a copy of tinyXP with loads of different versions of tinyxp which obviosly is stored on my main comps HD not a cd. Do i have to burn an iso? or can i just direct this program to see it on the HD, if so what level do i have to take it to...just the main folder or is it looking for a setup.exe or autorun or what?

Thanks

 

You need what is called an iso mounter.

Basically it takes the iso of TinyXP and creates a virtual cd drive on your computer, of which you 'mount' th tinyxp onto, it tricks your computerinto thinking it has another cd rom drive, with the tinyxp as a disc in it.

I reccommend deamon tools. Then just point it to the letter of the new virtual cd rom.

 

Hi - Hope someone can help me! I've created the XP USB key, but when I try to boot from it, I get a STOP: 0x0000007B bluescreen error. The same USB key works fine on another PC, so I know that's OK. It sounds like its not recognizing the HDD on my AAO (120Gb version). Linpus is working fine on it at the moment, so I don't think there's any hardware problems.

 

If I using XP Home Edition do I change to the XP Professional to XP Home as above?

 

On starting the installation on the Acer I got the following error message:

File\$win_nt$.~BT\biosinfo.inf could not be loaded.

The error code is 14.

Set up cannot continue press any key to exit.

Can anyone help me with this problem?

 

@tonyadams90, remake your installation USB key, it sounds like a bad file copy, or even a corrupt windows installation disk.

Also you shouldn't have to change the name of the windows in the boot file, just the numbers within the brackets, specifically the ones after 'rdisk'.

 

@lankyjames

I don't remember getting the 'bootcode was updated message' when preparing the usb stick. Could that be the problem?

I am using an XP upgrade disc. Will that be OK?