MAKING A BOOTABLE ISO

Question

IM RUNNING WIN 10B BUT HAVE WIN XP ON DVD. I NEED TO COPY INSTALLATION FILES ONTO THUMB DRIVE FOR A THIRD PC THATS BOOTABLE

Answer 1

To create a bootable USB drive with the Windows XP installation files, follow these steps:

1. Prepare the USB Drive:
   • Insert the USB thumb drive into your Windows 10 PC.
   • Open Disk Management by right-clicking on Start and selecting Disk Management.
   • Right-click on the USB drive partition and select Format. Choose the FAT32 file system to ensure compatibility.
   • Right-click the USB drive partition again and select Mark Partition as Active. If this option is not available, you can use the diskpart command to mark it active.
2. Copy Installation Files:
   • Insert the Windows XP DVD into your DVD drive.
   • Open File Explorer, and copy all the contents from the Windows XP DVD to the root of the USB drive.
3. Make the USB Drive Bootable:
   • Open Command Prompt with Administrator privileges.
   • Use the diskpart command to prepare the drive:

          diskpart
          list disk
          select disk X  (replace X with your USB drive number)
          clean
          create partition primary
          select partition 1
          active
          format fs=fat32 quick
          assign
          exit
     

   • After preparing the drive, copy the installation files from the DVD to the USB drive as mentioned earlier.
4. Boot from the USB Drive:
   • Insert the USB drive into the third PC and turn it on.
   • Access the boot menu (usually by pressing Esc/F10/F12) and select the USB drive to boot from it.

Following these steps will allow you to create a bootable USB drive with the Windows XP installation files.