installing windows from usb? is it bootable

[Blake]

I have an external usb cd drive? will i be able to run a fresh instal of xp off that drive or do i need to use an ultrabase?


thanks

[aabram]

I have an external usb cd drive? will i be able to run a fresh instal of xp off that drive or do i need to use an ultrabase?

Boots just fine, if you use native USB ports. You may or may not get it to work with various PCMCIA USB2 adapters, I have one and I couldn't boot off of it. When booting you may need to time the CD spin-up so that BIOS actually sees your bootable CD in it. Some drives are a bit slow to spin the disk up so that the check passes without finding a bootable device and only later you can hear CD waking up. I reinstalled Windows just last friday from USB external CD-drive and had to eject-insert the tray few times to hit that particular moment when system was trying to boot off the CD. Otherwise it's just a normal CD-drive.

[Blake]

awesome, thank you

[raggar]

actually you can even boot and install from an usb key.
you have to prepare the key first... but its quite nice... and depending on the cd drive sometimes faster... and cooler!!!

[Blake]

actually you can even boot and install from an usb key.
you have to prepare the key first... but its quite nice... and depending on the cd drive sometimes faster... and cooler!!!

i only have a 64mb key (its old i know 64mb is small) but im going to do a fresh install of xp pro, and try to use diff programs instead of resource hogs. Going to try different antivirus programs, and use open office, try to keep it memory free with less install bs.

[raggar]

less ressources he?

then i have a killer advice:
instead of using adobe acrobat for pdf archives try using the foxit reader.
It is lightnin fast!
it opens pdf files as fast as the notepad editor... and consumes a fraction on ressource as the acrobat hog.
you can even copy text from the pdf to the clipboard and paste it wwherever u like.

...and its free.

[BillMorrow]

less ressources he?

then i have a killer advice:
instead of using adobe acrobat for pdf archives try using the foxit reader.
It is lightnin fast!
it opens pdf files as fast as the notepad editor... and consumes a fraction on ressource as the acrobat hog.
you can even copy text from the pdf to the clipboard and paste it wwherever u like.

...and its free.

and here is where you can find it..

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

[Habakkuk]

Thank you! Never knew about this reader. Are there any features that Foxit doesn't support that are present in Acrobat reader?

[Panman]

I would like to mention a problem i had with installing windows from a usb cdrom.

It booted fine from the drive, but the first time windows had to restart to copy the rest of the files, it couldn't boot then.
So make sure that the cdrom you are using is compatible with your thinkpad. Mine was a cdrom that i was connecting thourgh a IDE interface and i didn't work for this case...

For installing linux though, it was just fine. As it didn't require any reboot during the installation...

//pan

[aceyx]

actually you can even boot and install from an usb key.
you have to prepare the key first... but its quite nice... and depending on the cd drive sometimes faster... and cooler!!!

Will I have to use the HP boot format tool mentioned in this thread if all I want to do is copy an XP cd to a USB drive, and install from there? Is that even possible?