I followed the instructions in the tutorial “Creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows XP.” The only deviation from the instructions was that I downloaded Server 2003 Service Pack 2, not SP1. Went through the entire process apparently successfully, and formatted and installed on a 2GB USB flash drive, brand name Ativa (I think this is Office Depot store brand).
I have tested the drive on two different machines, a Dell Dimension 4600 and Dim 5100, both of which allow booting from USB devices. In both cases, the RAMdisk image was loaded, but then I see the message “Please wait …” and nothing else happens (I let both machines sit for several minutes).
Any help solving this problem would be appreciated. Let me know if I can supply any additional info. Thanks in advance.