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Thread: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

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    Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    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?
    Last edited by 777funk; March 2nd, 2021 at 03:33 PM.
    Xubuntu 20.04
    Win 7 Pro / Win XP Pro
    ASUS i7 4770S 16GB and Various other machines

  2. #2
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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    Quote Originally Posted by 777funk View Post
    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.
    Xubuntu 20.04
    Win 7 Pro / Win XP Pro
    ASUS i7 4770S 16GB and Various other machines

  3. #3
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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    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?

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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tadaen_Sylvermane View Post
    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.
    Xubuntu 20.04
    Win 7 Pro / Win XP Pro
    ASUS i7 4770S 16GB and Various other machines

  5. #5
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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    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.
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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    Quote Originally Posted by deadflowr View Post
    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).
    Xubuntu 20.04
    Win 7 Pro / Win XP Pro
    ASUS i7 4770S 16GB and Various other machines

  7. #7
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    Re: Windows XP CD image file. How can I make this a bootable USB drive?

    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.

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