Windows XP on a USB stick

Not a how do I question - I've got it working. However, my usbhub.sys and usbstor.sys from the embedded XP system keep get being overwritten by the official files. I've managed to stop this by renaming the driver.cab and sp3.cab files (put an x in front of them). However, everytime I do anything (add devices etc), it can't find the .cab files so wants the Cd-Rom.

So, that's the problem. The solution is to embed the usb*.sys files into the sp3.cab file. But how can I add them? WinZip and WinRar both complain the .cab is not a standard compressed file (duh, its a Windows one). Does anyone know of a program I can use to embed these 2 troublesome files into the .cab files ?

 

As an update.

You have to get the CAB SDK package from Microsoft (free download) and extract cabarc.exe.
Install XP on a USBstick as normal. When it reboots to the GUI and crashes, switch off, pull the USB stick and put it into another XP machine.
Put sp3.cab from the USB stick (\windows\driver cache\i386) in a clean directory and run "cabarc x sp3.cab" to extrat everything. Delete the sp3.cab file itself. Copy the embedded USB*.SYS files (overwriting the existing ones) and then run "cabarc n sp3.cab *.*" to make the sp3.cab file again. Put it back on the USB stick (\windows\driver cache\i386).
Do the same from drivers.cab
Put the USB stick back in your AAO and reboot. Carry on installing XP. It will complain about unsigned drivers (the USB ones), just click OK - about 10 messages will apear in total.
This also makes installing other USB devices (keyboard/mice etc) OK.

Hope this helps others trying to do the same as I was.