Hardware

Ask something
Question Locked

XP USB Boot drive

0 helpful
13 replies

by shadow-shard

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hey guys, iv made a XP USB boot drive and need to no how to stop xp from detecting MOBO changes at boot up.
ATM it only works on the comp that it was setup on, but i need it to work on multiple comps (as i plan to use it as a diag tool) and currently it BSOD's just after the windows loading screen
is there any way of making this work? if so how, if not y not?
Thanks guys

13 replies

by boxfiddler

to a complete load of Print/View All. The ONLY way to read these threads without spending an entire night trying to read 3 or 4 threads.

And you can?t reply until TR has finished loading the page. At least not at this speed. Brings up a 404 Page Not Found every time.

by thechas

Why are you attempting to use Windows XP as a diagnostic tool?

There are lots of other tools I would use over XP for diagnostic tasks. The first that comes to mind is the Ultimate Boot CD. It comes with lots of great diagnostic tools.

As to why XP has problems when you use it with different hardware, there are 2 reasons for that.

1 is that the XP license is tied to the hardware your copy of XP is installed on and activated with. In fact, if you are using a retail or OEM licensed copy of XP, using it on multiple computers does violate the EULA.

The second reason is that XP uses a Windows NT based core. A critical system file (HAL.DLL) is built up specifically for the hardware of the computer it is installed on. This is the Hardware Abstraction Layer. This is the same reason that when you pull a hard drive with Windows XP installed on it and move it to a different computer that the system does not boot into Windows.

Chas

by oh smeg

And that is to do a M'Board Replacement Repair before testing every piece of hardware that you plug it into that Supports Booting from a USB Device.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

XP only loads the drivers required by the Hardware it is installed on so there is no way to make it usable on all the different hardware currently available.

Col

by shadow-shard

Im using a full version of Windows XP Pro that iv put onto the usb drive using this guide:
http://www.ngine.de/article/id/8/
and it works perfectly on the comp its set up on, but every other machine BSOD's after the XP load screen

by older mycroft

What OS+Utilities do you envisage being on these machines before you arrive with your little USB stick??

by oh smeg

It is not designed to allow you to use the 1 Install on different Hardware.

Windows doesn't work like Linux or BSD it only loads the required drivers into the HAL.DLL and can not be circumvented as the Design of it doesn't support multiple Hardware Booting. It will [b]BSOD[/b] out every time that you move it to different hardware that is different from the original Install. So you can either make 1 Image for every Hardware Combination or use something different that actually works like the Ultimate Boot CD

http://tinyurl.com/3jnpy

Or any Live Linux

http://tinyurl.com/23nmq

Windows [b]Can Not[/b] boot on multiple different hardware you can only rebuild it every time you need to boot it to a different piece of hardware like M$ describes here

http://tinyurl.com/j9u7

No other tools available free now so you have to use one of those listed above and as a Repair Install of Windows will take about 1 Hour every time you need to use it that isn't a workable option unless you are getting paid by the hour and you don't mind robbing your customers.

Col

by 1bn0

the Ultimate Boot Cd 4 Windows has worked on the few different machines I have tried it on.

Maybe there is some information there that will help you.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

by older mycroft

Isn't it?

Windows is already there - Otherwise it wouldn't have anything to examine. :p

by 1bn0

He does say he is trying to create diagnostics disk.

I accepted that a Windows based diag disk would be used to diagnose a Windows based PC.

So maybe trying to read the existing configuration would help.

This discussion is closed to new replies.