Okay. Something that is a smidgen over my head. Just a smidgen XD Well, I have been dabbling in the realm of Virtual machines for awhile. Its all fine and dandy, does its job. But not quite perfectly. I wanted to test out my computer in a 64 bit way rather than my current 32 bit. I normally run Windows XP professional. I have 2 gig of ram, minimum required is 1 gig of ram i believe. Only 2 gig of ram to spare and to give a virtual machine half your ram or more causes a meditation error. So rather than emulate a computer (Oracle VirtualBox, BTW. Not particularly important.) I figured I would try to boot via USB. So I went into my computer's Bios and activated the USB boot option. Then I popped in my 64 bit install disc and went into setup. I got my drive ready (Dane-Elec 8GB, if it matters) and selected it to install the OS on. All went well, more than enough room, all files copied over, success left and right. Then it saved a configuration and restarted like any normal OS before activation. Computer came back on, I waited till the "press any key to load CD" passed and my USB started flashing and was being read. The 64 bit logo appeared and started loading before moments later it blue screened me. I do not have the stop code handy, but it was the one that 64 bits get when they can't access the boot device. I restarted and same thing, but a screen flashed. From the glimpse of what I saw, its a multi boot screen. There was an option to load my regular OS or the 64 bit. I couldn't load the 64 bit, so in the half second I have I spammed the down key to scroll to my regular OS and hit enter. Loe and behold, my regular OS boots without a problem. So I tried unplugging my USB, removing the disc, turning off USB boot, messing with boot order, nada. Every time I would get the multi boot for a brief second then a failed boot of 64 bit. So I have to be quick to actually turn on my computer. Any way to remove the 64 "install" from my computer? If I got this right, the OS is on the USB as expected. It just doesn't want to load. However, I believe the actual configuration is on my C: drive. So it goes into said configuration with an OS that isn't even there. Edit: Oh, and while looking up my computer specs I noticed a PCI Device that isn't properly and can't be re installed it cannot find necessary files even with the USB plugged in. Supposedly it pops up when a drive or piece of hardware is not properly detected. "Shocker" >.> General sources: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457053.aspx http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/bootorderchange.htm Computer specs: Windows XP professional, Service pack 3 32 bit C: drive- about 186 gig External flash drive- 8 gig DVD/CD/RW Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40 GHz, 2.00 GB of RAM Physical Address Extension Nevada video card? Some proper name I can't recall? I don't recall the sound card, I believe its made by ATI. Not sure If anybody can help I would be like, really grateful. Like, forever XD Thank you, have a nice day.
I'm not really understanding the concept of what you were trying to do. Were you trying to boot in a virtual device, or were you trying to dual boot your actual computer? You're trying to dual boot XP 32 and 64 . . . i'm not sure exactly if there would be any problem in doing that but I couldn't say for sure. Either there wasn't enough details here for me to understand or I'm just not getting it. You get a blue screen? What about the partitions? Do you have one for each OS?
I'm pretty sure your hardware has to be 64-bit compatible to install a 64-bit operating system; that may have been why you got the errors. At any rate, though, you should try taking a look at the boot.ini file on your working installation. If something goes wrong with this you may have trouble getting into your operating system again, so I'd recommend backing up your important files & such.
Well, I never wanted it to duel boot. I wanted the OS completely separate from my computer. Mainly because I only have the one hard drive. so rather than actually put it on my computer, I wanted it to be its own entity on a usb. so I went into my bios and turned on usb boot. however the main issue is it seems to have become multi boot to the computer, and it tries to load it even when its not there. I do not particularly care about the 64 bit OS atm, I just want it off my computer so by default my system only looks for the original 32 bit OS. Originally my intent was to just see how my computer ran on 64 bit os. Virtual machine didnt work due to the sharing of Ram and such being incificiant. so I wanted it to boot via USB
I've never heard of a working OS being run from a usb device. You can carry around the installation software but you can't just pop it in and boot loading an OS. There should be a partition that was created on your hard drive for the 64 bit. I'm having trouble remember but you might be able to go into it by right clicking on my computer, then choosing manage. A window will pop up and there will be words to the left hand side listing what you can manage. Click on disk management. There you will find your C: drive, along with the list of partitions. Locate the one containing the 64 bit OS (make sure it's the right one before continuing) then you want to right click on that partition and choose to format. Now in windows 7 and I think Vista there is a neat option to combine partitions back together. However in windows XP there is not, so you will have your 32 bit OS back but you will be losing space. There is a program out there that can combine the partitions but i'm not sure what it is. MAKE SURE NOT TO DELETE THE WRONG PARTITION!!! You can lose all your data if you choose the wrong one. Look for one that would have two program file folders, or one that doesn't have of your things in it. To be honest with you the thing that I would do is go into the 32 bit, get all my files and transfer them to a usb. Then to a clean install of XP 32 bit on the hard drive deleting the partitions and formatting. Then replace your files to the computer. But that's just me. Hope this helps ^_^ EDIT: Let me know if you have trouble finding the partitions, I haven't dealt with XP in some time.
Oh my god. I cannot believe I didn't think of that the partition manager T.T XD I will try it when I can, probably a few hours from now. However yes, it is indeed possible to boot via a USB. I did some research for ****s and giggles, and cam up with this: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootusbflash.htm There is that and the USB boot option via the BIOS, so i would assume its possible. Minus my issues XD I have also read rumors that XP is not all that USB boot friendly, so most people do it with like windows 7 and linyx. I will get back to you on success or failure. I will probably try tonight. :)[DOUBLEPOST=1353124029][/DOUBLEPOST] I went into the partition manager and my C drive still only had its 1 partition. Everything else was my 2 disc drives and an E drive that might either be the floppy disc port or something from virtualbox or Daemon tools. However, I took the advice of Misty and took a look at my boot.ini. Loe and behold my theory was correct. Its seen as a multi boot. Meaning I should be able to remove it via the command prompt and everything should be sparkles and rainbows once more :) (Don't ask. First thing that came to mind XD)
Yeah, it wouldn't show up in your partition manager because you didn't create a partition for the operating system; you used it off of your flash drive. However, modifying the boot.ini should give you some results. Best of luck.
Oh my god! Its working again! :D I am so happy! Thank you so so much! I managed to remove the 64 bit OS but still had booting issues. I messed with the boot.ini and tried setting my windows XP to default rather than WINDOWS (which was default on boot menu). That didn't work, so I changed that back to WINDOWS. However I managed to fix it. For some reason there was a " /noexecute=optin /fastdetect" at the end of WINDOWS. I removed that and now everything is just as it was beforehand. Thank you all for your help :)
The first thing I noticed is that you're trying to install XP 64 bit which usually takes up about 20 gb on an 8 gb flash drive. What are you trying to do? As far as I know you can't install on OS on a usb, you can intall the OS on your hard drive from the USB however. If you are trying to install an os on the usb istelf, I'd go with Debian or Lubuntu linux, they are both very light OS' that only take up about 5 gb drive space.
30 gig? I don't think so. I did some research prior to the project. According to microsoft it only requires 5 gig lol Under hardware requirements: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306856 Of coarse, I am planning on Linux or something. Something other than XP, because according to other research, it does not play well with USB boot. But anywho lol.
I never said 30. The installer is around 5 gb but the extracted OS is 17.9 gb (on my old xp machine, anyway) and thats just counting the windows folder. if what you're trying to do is use the usb as a hard drive to install windows xp on then I don't think it'l work.
