===================================================================================

==============================
Author: Ilko
Version: 0.2.2
Credits: jaclaz, cdob, wimb and porear from MSFN forum for their continuous help
and work on Installing XP from USB, without who this wouldn't have happened,
as well as to everyone, who contributed to the project with ideas, requests or
feedback.

Thanks to UglyBob, ptrex, SmOke_N, aec and ezzetabi from AutoIt forum for their
excellent AutoIt script examples, parts of which were used.
Thanks to Anton Bassov for his dummydisk.sys driver and help for reverting it's
behaviour to rdummy.sys, which makes USB fixed disks to be seen as removable.
Thanks to Ercofrafrom msfn.org forum for ideas to fix some of the issues with
unattended section in WINNT.SIF isung fake setup.exe.
Thanks to Driver Packs team and OverFlow for letting me use their version of fake
Setup.exe, original idea and authors- schalti, Pyron, a06lp and iLE
Thanks to Bean123, who helped with grubinst.exe and touchdrv.exe and Tynibit for
his excellent support with grub4dos issues.
And last but not least credits to creators of all tools, which were used in this
project- Grub4DOS, PEtoUSB, HP USB format utility, HDHacker, SysLinux,
binifix.cmd(did I mention Jaclaz, cdob and wimb?), QEMU, DRVLoad
,sync.exe and spdrvscn from Vernalex, Nicholas Dille for start64.exe.

The program is released "as is" and is free for redistribution, use or changes AS
LONG AS original author, credits part and link to the support forum-
http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-from-USB-f157.html
are CLEARLY mentioned.

Author does not take any responsibility for use or misuse of the program!
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==============================

How to start-
1. First make sure you have a properly formatted USB disk or flash media.
It must have a MBR and an active partition set.

a) USB flash media- format it with PEtoUSB in FAT16 or FAT16x (LBA checked) for
partitions up to 2GB. This will preserve all partition information.
If your media is above 2GB you will have to use FAT32- use HP USB disk format tool.
Note that it will DELETE all partitions and create a single one, occupying the
whole disk. NTFS is reported faster on some systems, your USB stick parameters are
also factor.
Whereas NTFS generally is not recommended for USB flash media, if you are not
planning excessive usage, but rather occasional installs from it, then it should be
safe to use it as long as you can boot from it.

There is another way to format USB flash media- to use filter driver, such as
Hitachi microdrive filter driver or dummydisk.sys (included, look in
FILES\MULTIpartitionUSBstick folder). Using such driver will 'make' your stick to
appear to Windows as fixed disk. In this case, when formatting Windows will write
MBR on in with partition information.
You may now use Disk management console, or third party programs to make multiple
partitions and format them as you desire.

NTFS performs way faster on some systems, or with some USB sticks. However, keep in
mind that depending on usage and USB stick quality, it may "wear it out" quicker.

Look here foe a quick speed comparison and how faster NTFS is:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125116

!!!Make sure you set an active partition, either from Disk management, or from your
favourite external program.!!!
!!!Use primary partitions when placing Windows based sources!!!
!!!Usew first partition when copying Windows Setup!!!

b) USB hard disk- format it from within Windows and make sure you set active
partition!!!

In both cases USB boot is not guaranteed! That depends on your BIOS/motherboard,
how disk is formatted and what file system etc.
In general FAT16 is the best bet for compatibility, next is FAT32, then NTFS. In
some cases different format tools may set improper geometry.
Look here for some detailed answers:
http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.net/Projects/USB/USBstick.html
http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.net/Projects/USB/USBfaqs.html

2. Select your sources

a) Windows- select the folder, which contains I386/AMD64 folders. Do NOT select
folder I386 itself!

!!!If you used Nlite to slim it down, option "Operating System Options-->Manual
Install and Upgrade for removal" must NOT be selected. This is crucial part.!!!

Optionally:
b) BartPE/WinBuilder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC- select the folder, which contains I386
folder.
!!!In case of WinFLPC keep in mind that BOOT.INI on target disk wll be set
incorrectly!!! In order to start it for a first time, either edit in BOOT.INI
disk(z) to disk(z-1) from BartPE for example, or add this to menu.lst on the active
partition of the USB disk
####
title Start WinFLPC
map (hd1) (hd0)
map --hook
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader /ntldr
###
Above example assumes WinFLPC is on first partition of your first internal disk.
Ammend accordingly.
Once in WinFLPC, edit BOOT.INI on the internal disk as was mentioned above:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows FPLC" /FASTDETECT
to
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows FPLC" /FASTDETECT

c) Vista / Windows 7 setup- select the folder with BOOT and SOURCES folders.
d) PartedMagic- where ISO file pmagic-3.X.iso is. You need to extract pmagic-
grub4dos-3.X.iso.zip somewhere and point to its location.
To get PartedMagic: http://partedmagic.com/

e) SysLinux- select your Linux distro, which boots off SysLinux. All files/folders
will be copied. A file(syslin.dat), containing Syslinux bootsector will be made,
and an entry in the boot menu (menu.lst), pointing to that file will be made. In
case you do not select anything only syslin.dat and ldlinux.sys will be copied,
plus entry in menu.lst.
!!! Make sure you have not already added another source, which contains the same
folders in root as the ones from Vista, UBCD4Win etc. The program will NOT
overwrite files/folders.!!!
!!! SysLinux cannot be started from NTFS formatted partition !!!
3. Select target disk from the drop-down menu. Windows Setup can be started only
from the first partition on the disk! It does not have to be active. Sorry, this is
limitation from Microsoft- in case of removable USB disk, it can't read any
partition than first.
If your USB disk is not shown then:
a) It's not inserted
b) It does NOT have an active partition
c) It's NOT formatted in FAT16,FAT32 or NTFS
d) The program has a bug :) Please report details.

Optional settings:
4. Force target disk type(FIXED/REMOVABLE)- usually the program will detect that
for you. Force selection only if you are using filter driver as above mentioned
dummydisk.sys or Hitachi microdrive filter driver. Or if for some reason the
program did not detect it correctly. This is an important part when installing
Windows XP/2kX from USB hard disks, or USB flash media, which is seen by Windows as
FIXED.

5. Copy Setup boot files only- this option will copy just a minimal set of files
(7-12MB), necessary for the first part(Text mode) of the setup.
Use to test how your USB disk boots, before copying the main part.

!!!DO NOT continue setup, you have to stop when you see the list of hard disks
detected!!!

6. Test in QEMU- this will launch QEMU virtual machine, which will use your USB
disk as it's internal disk. You may use that as a basic test how the build went.
Note that this not guarantees you the same result on real hardware.
!!! Currently it's setup to use 256MB RAM when started. Make sure you have at least
that amount + some extra RAM available!!!
!!!USE AT OWN RISK. DO NOT PERFORM WRITE OPERATIONS WHILE IN QEMU!!!

7. BOOT.INI adjustments
a) First field is the directory name, where Windows will be installed to.
b) Disk Nr.- on which of your disks Windows will be installed to. For example if
you have two internal disks, first is disk 0, second is disk 1.
c) Partition number- in which partition of the above selected disk Windows will be
installed to.
d) Additional entries in BOOT.INI- as above, but creates additional lines in
BOOT.INI with the specified data. Use it if you plan to install Windows to
disks/partition/directories other than the ones above.

This data will be used to create BOOT.INI on the USB disk, with the correct
settings. It will be used to start the second part (GUI mode) of setup, AND to
start Windows for first time, still using the USB disk as boot device.

!!!Make sure the above entries are correct, otherwise you will get error messages
like "HAL.DLL/NTOSKRNL.EXE was not found"
I need to stress on that- make sure BOOT.INI data is correct, and DO NOT UNPLUG the
USB disk until you enter first normal Windows desktop.

8) Press GO button, you have guessed that :)

You have 2 steps, in both USB stick is your boot device (change that preferably in
BIOS):
-Text mode part of setup
-GUI mode part of setup
!!!If your source is NOT Windows XP2 SP2 or SP3, some of the compressed files in
~LS folder will be deleted during the first part(Text mode). To make another
install from this disk you have to copy the missing files, use the program for this
purpose and follow the prompts when it finds existing setup folders.!!!

!!!If you are getting Blue screen with 0x0000007B error during start of Text mode
setup or BartPE/WinBuilder..., read A3:

http://www.msfn.org/board/FAQs-t116766.html

and make sure you have a driver for your mass storage (SATA/AHCI/SCSI/RAID)
controller in your source.

===================================================================================
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Some advanced features of the program:

- supports multiple Windows XP/2kX sources in the same partition (up to 10).
Existing folders ~BT and ~LS and TXTSETUP.SIF will be renamed, and SETUPLDR.BIN and
SETUPDD.SYS patched against the new names. Checksum checks are also corrected.
- supports booting BartPE/WinBulder/UBCD4Win/WinFLPC from different partitions.
Multiple BartPE for example in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Neither is the
mix of them on a single partition.
- supports booting Vista / Windows 7 setup from different partitions. Multiple
Vista/7 sources in the SAME partition are NOT supported. Place your second Vista
setup in another partition. It can be placed on any primary partition.
- UBCD4Win boot menu is adjusted to boot from the selected partition. It can be
placed on any primary partition.
- if Windows setup folders (~BT and ~LS) and txtsetup.sif coexist in the same
partition as BartPE/WinBuilder/UNCD4Win/WinFLPC, SETUPLDR.BIN of the latter is
patched not to use txtsetup.sif in root. Checksum checks are also corrected.
- grub4dos is the main bootloader/manager. Without it's advanced features, multiple
partitions will not be easily achieved.
Bootsector loading GRLDR is installed in the active partition of the selected disk.
Hence the requirement for active partition and MBR.
- detailed log file is created in the folder, where program is executed from. Use
it for troubleshooting. Upon next execution if log file is found, it's compressed
in MS cab format, removed to BACKUPS folder and renamed with current DATE/TIME
stamp.
- upon installing grub4dos bootsector, backup of MBR and bootsector with DATE/TIME
stamp are placed in BACKUPS folder. Us it in case something goes wrong.
- if in Windows source folder winnt.sif or unattend.txt are found they will be used
as answer file. Section UNATTENDED will be temporarily removed, only for the Text
part of setup, and before start of GUI mode it will be merged back. PRESETUP.CMD is
used for this purpose.
- Windows source will be copied as follows-
everything in I386/AMD64 folders.
BTS drivers pack OEM folder
$OEM$ folder
CMPNENTS folder
PRINTERS folder
If you want to slim down your source, do it prior to launching the program.
Again- option "Operating System Options-->Manual Install and Upgrade for removal"
must NOT be selected!
!!! Do NOT replace completely WINNT.SIF in ~BT folder when the program completed.
If you need to add extra entries- do so, but make sure you don't break what has
been done to it. Do NOT add UNATTENDED section, if you need to make these changes
in ~LS\I386(AMD64)\tempunat.inf, which contains your unattended section and will be
merged at start of GUI mode.
- PE source will be copied as follows:
everything in I386 copied as MININT
folder Setup (WinFLPC)
folder Programs(BartPE) or Program Files(WinBuilder/WinFLPC)
folder IMAGES (UBCD4Win)
folder CMDC copied as CMDCONS (UBCD4Win)

- Vista/7 source
entire contents of the selected folder will be copied to root of the
selected partition

PartedMagic and Syslinux were mentioned above.

- From previous version of USB_multiboot and USB_prepare, undoren.cmd and

binifix.cmd(thanks Jaclaz) were merged.

Some still applicable FAQs:

http://www.msfn.org/board/FAQs-t116766.html

Please report bugs(include your log file) or feature requests here:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-from-USB-f157.html

When in doubt point your mouse over object in the GUI and read the tooltip, or ask
for help in the dedicated MSFN subforum:
http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-USB-f157.html

Have fun :)