Install Windows XP from USB Disk

Windows XP is still very popular as it is fast and fulfills all the basic requirements of a good operating system. Many times, on a system when the CD/DVD drive is not available, then it becomes impossible to install Windows XP. In that case, you can install Windows XP from a USB flash drive. Even if you have a working CD/DVD drive attached to your system, you may want to install Windows XP from a USB flash disk as it is faster. Here is how you :

  1. Download Novicorp WinToFlash.
  2. Extract the contents of the zip file to a folder and run WinToFlash.exe
  3. Click on the wizard button as shown in the following picture :

  4. Insert your Windows XP disk in the CD drive and a blank Flash drive with atleast 600MB capacity in a USB port.
  5. Click Next in the Wizard to continue. Choose the Windows XP CD drive (in my case G:) and the target USB flash disk drive (in my case H:) as shown

  6. Accept the Microsoft End User Agreement License and click Continue.
  7. It will give you a warning that your target USB disk is going to be formatted, click on OK to continue as shown

  8. It will start formatting your target USB disk, and then copying Windows XP files to the target disk. When it is finished copying files, you will see a completion dialog as shown below.

All done. Now you have a bootable USB disk which you can use for installing Windows XP. Boot from this USB disk and you can treat it as Windows XP CD. This is faster and hassle free than a CD.