PDA

View Full Version : [legacy Windows] Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?


777funk
February 23rd, 2021, 10:52 PM
I have DVDs that I could burn to, but I'd like to just put this on a thumb drive. How can I do this from Linux?
777funk
March 2nd, 2021, 03:33 PM
I have DVDs that I could burn to, but I'd like to just put this on a thumb drive. How can I do this from Linux?


Does anyone know how I can do this? I'd like to put my Win XP install CD onto a regular USB drive.
Tadaen_Sylvermane
March 2nd, 2021, 03:56 PM
Not sure it's possible. An ISO needs to be built a certain way for usb to work. At the time that just wasn't a common thing, especially for Windows.

https://superuser.com/a/623998

This may work but it looks way more effort than it's worth. Is there a reason you want XP specifically? Especially with it totally unsupported these days?
777funk
March 2nd, 2021, 05:15 PM
Not sure it's possible. An ISO needs to be built a certain way for usb to work. At the time that just wasn't a common thing, especially for Windows.

https://superuser.com/a/623998

This may work but it looks way more effort than it's worth. Is there a reason you want XP specifically? Especially with it totally unsupported these days?

The reason I'd use it still is to run a few pieces of software (music production) that still loaded in XP up to a couple years ago. I have a few thousand worth of music recording software and it'd be too expensive to upgrade or in some cases it's even obsolete.

I don't get online with the XP laptop.
deadflowr
March 2nd, 2021, 07:58 PM
What kind of image file is it?
ISO can boot directly in a virtual machine, which is probably a better thing to do than installing directly onto a machine.
777funk
March 2nd, 2021, 09:36 PM
What kind of image file is it?
ISO can boot directly in a virtual machine, which is probably a better thing to do than installing directly onto a machine.

Thanks for the tip and it is infact an ISO (created from a Win XP CD via dd).

It seems like a virtual machine may have trouble with USB and Firewire audio interface I/O speeds (latency can be an enemy in live recording).

Ironically I also tried installing from the .iso file (and the disc) to VirtualBox and it's not taking it (the OS just opens and closes).
yancek
March 3rd, 2021, 01:45 PM
Using dd on an iso file to make it bootable on a usb requires that it be hybrid, which windows iso files are not. I don't think bootable usb's were common in the days of xp. You might be able to loop mount the xp iso file, then copy the extracted contents to a usb and either boot it from Grub on your installed Linux or install Grub on the usb and write a proper menuentry in grub.cfg.

I've done this type of thing with a windows 7 recovery disk as well as a windows 10 installer on the same usb, but have not used xp. I expect something like this would work.