How to Install Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive

What do you do when there is no optical drive in your PC or Laptop and you want to install a Windows XP on it? You can use a USB drive to do the same. Here is a detailed step by step procedure to install Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive in your computer. Before we Install, we should create a bootable USB flash drive with Windows XP loaded into it. This will be required if we want to reinstall the OS.

Previously we discussed How to Boot into Windows XP using a Flash Drive

Install Windows XP from a USB Flash Drive

In order to install Windows XP from a flash drive, first you should dump your OS into this thumb drive. In order to do that, you will need

• a desktop or laptop with Windows XP/Vista/7
• An optical drive  in  the PC.
• The original Windows XP or Vista or Windows 7 installation disk.
• A USB flash drive  for Windows OS.
• A software called  ‘Komku-SP-usb.exe’ 

Here is the procedure to make the USB Flash Drive ready i.e., to make it bootable.

Step 1: Download and install ‘Komku’

Download  the software ‘Komku-SP-usb.exe’ from this link and execute  it. The executable file will extract  the necessary utilities  to a  folder called  ‘C:komku’.

STEP 2: Prepare the USB drive

Once  the package has been extracted, go to the folder  ‘C:komkuPeToUSB’ using Windows Explorer. Execute  the file ‘PeToUSB.exe’.  Plug in the USB flash drive and make sure you choose  the  following (see  image below) before clicking  the start button.

Select ‘USB  removable’, ‘Enable Disk Format’, ‘Quick  format’,  ‘Enable LBA (Fat  16x)’ and finally give the drive a name under ‘Drive Label’. Once it’s done, click start to let the utility format the drive.

STEP 3: Copy the boot sector to the USB flash drive

Next you will need to start  the command prompt. Click ‘Start > Run’, type  ‘cmd’ and press [Enter]. Then go to  the ‘bootsect’ directory by typing the command ‘cd  C:komkubootsect’ and pressing [Enter].

Now type the command ‘bootsect  /nt52  F:’ and press [Enter]. (The ‘F:’ is the USB flash drive letter represented in ‘My Computer’. Check to verify the drive letter used by your USB flash drive). Let the utility do the needful. Do not exit the Command Prompt yet.

STEP 4: Launch the ‘USB_prep8′ utility.

Now you will need  to change  to the directory  ‘Usb_Prep8’ by using  the command ‘cd  C:komkuusb _ prep8’ and pressing [Enter].

Here execute the command  ‘usb _ prep8’ and press [Enter]. Press any key to continue and you will see a welcome screen with a menu appear in the Command Prompt.

 

STEP 5: Enter the source path for the Windows XP CD.

Now at  this stage, you will have to insert  the Windows XP installation disk into your optical drive. At  the Command Prompt menu, type ‘1’ and press [Enter]. A new popup will appear asking you to choose the location (path) of  the Windows installation disk.

Select the optical drive and click ‘OK’. Next choose ‘2’ from  the menu and change the drive letter to any drive letter which has not been taken. It is drive ‘T:’ by default and you can ignore this step unless you do have a ‘T:’ drive on your computer. After this, choose ‘3’ from the menu and enter the drive letter of your USB flash drive (in this case it would be ‘F’).

Finally choose ‘4’ from the menu and press [Enter]. Wait  for a  few seconds for the process to complete and you will see a prompt to allow  the utility to format  the USB fash drive. Type ‘Y’ and then press [Enter] at this stage to let the utility proceed and install the necessary files from the Windows XP installation disk to the USB flash drive. This process will  take a  few minutes and depends on the speed of  the flash drive.

STEP 6: Allow the utility to copy the data to the drive

After  the files are copied, you will see a popup window asking you for permission  to copy files from  the  temp drive to the USB flash drive. Select ‘Yes’.

STEP 7: Allow the changes to allocate a drive letter.

Next  there will be another popup window asking you to allow the utility  to change  the boot drive  letter of the USB flash drive  from  ‘F:’ to ‘U:’. Select ‘Yes’.

STEP 8: Unmount the virtual drive.

Finally, after all  the processes are complete, you will see yet another popup window asking if you want  to unmount  the virtual drive. Select  ‘Yes’. Exit  the Command Prompt now and you will see  that your flash drive  is  ready  to install Windows XP  to another computer.

To  install Windows XP to the computer, you will have  to do the following steps..

• Go to the BIOS and enable the option of booting  from a USB removable device. This option  is usually found under  the boot sequence menu of  the BIOS.
• Plug  in  the USB drive to the computer before you  turn it on.
• Now your computer will boot from the USB flash drive and will be ready to install Windows XP.
Follow  the necessary steps  to  install Windows XP and your computer will be up, raring and ready  to go and running Windows in no  time. This is an easy and better way to install your Operating System as a USB port is available on every system.

How to install Windows XP from USB flash drive

How to install Windows XP from USB flash drive Part-I

At first download the software Win to Flash . It does not need the installation. After running the setup file the following screen will appear.

From Task tab you can chose your task.

After choosing task press next .

Select the source path of the windows installation disk or copy and then the path of your USB flash drive.

Now the exact bootable copy will be made in the USB Flash drive.
You can now install Windows XP from Flash drive.It is pretty easy method to install Windows XP from your Usb flash drive.If any problem arises then contact us.You can also manually build your USB flash drive enabled for installing XP in it.
But that process is quite complex and so I recommend the process Install Windows XP from USB Flash Drive part-II. Any question or suggestion is always welcome.

Install Windows XP From USB Flash Drive Part-II

I previously wrote an article Install Windows XP from USB Flash/Pen Drive part-I. This process allows you make a USB flash disk/drive bootable and exactly the same as the XP installation CD.

To make the whole process you should have a PC/Computer/Laptop with CD/DVD Rom. Once you make your USB drive ready to boot windows  XP setup from it then you can start Installing Windows XP from that USB Disk/drive in any computer.
Also read how to Install Any Software You need In Your USB Flash Drive With Mojopac.
I shall describe the process how to make the USB drive ready to install XP in your computer step by step.
Requirements:
1. At first you have to get a USB flash drive/disk(at least 1 GB).
2. XP_FROM_USB.rar from the given link below:
Download link
Update: You should have XP installed computer for this process.

The procedure

1. Extract the XP_FROM_USB.rar archive in a folder named Softslas(Say) in C: drive.
Now navigate to C:\Softslas\PeToUSB\ and double click on the peToUSB.exe

The appearing window will be like this
Set these:

• select “USB Removable as Destination Drive”
• select “Enable Disk Format”
• select “Quick Format”
• select “Enable LBA (FAT 16x)”
• Put  XP-Softslas (or whatever you want) in Drive Label :

Now click Start
Then you will get the message and click yes
Another message box will again appear and click Yes

After clicking on “Yes” the USB disk will be formatted.Wait for few seconds and then click on “Ok” and then chose “Close”.
3. Now open the windows Command prompt typing cmd in Start->Run
Now in Command Prompt window type
cd c:\softslas\bootsect and press “Enter”.
Now type the command
bootsect /nt52 I: and press “Enter”

Then again type “cd..” and press “Enter” and cd usb_prep8 and press “Enter”.

Now type usb_prep8 and press “Enter”.

4. Press any key to continue.
Now the command prompt window will look like this.

Prepares Windows XP LocalSource for Copy to USB-Drive:
0) Change Type of USB-Drive, currently [USB-stick]
1) Change XP Setup Source Path, currently []
2) Change Virtual TempDrive, currently [T:]
3) Change Target USB-Drive Letter, currently []
4) Make New Tempimage with XP LocalSource and Copy to USB-Drive
5) Use Existing Tempimage with XP LocalSource and Copy to USB-Drive
F) Change Log File – Simple OR Extended, currently [Simple]
Q) Quit
Enter your choice:_

Insert the XP installation CD in you CD/DVD ROM and in command prompt window type 1 and press “Enter”..
A “Browse For Folder” window will appear and here select the CD/DVD drive and then click OK.
Similarly for the choice field enter 2 and if there assigned the letter “T” for your computer then change it otherwise do not alter it. After typing 2 in the choice option it will prompt “Enter Available Virtual Drive Letter”.
Here type a letter that is not any drive letter of your computer.
Let us say S is not a drive letter in your computer. So put S then press “Enter”.
Now it will get back to the Command prompt and then type 3 where it prompts for the choice. Then it will prompt “Please give Target USB-Drive Letter e.g type U”.

Now put your USB drive letter and press “Enter”. Here my USB drive label is “I” so I put “I”.
Now  input 4 and press Enter. It creates the new temporary image  and makes a copy of it to the USB Flash Drive .
Please wait for a few seconds..
A warning message will appear like this:
“WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE T: WILL BE LOST! Proceed with Format (Y/N)?”
Type Y and press “Enter”.
Please wait………..
After completing Format it will prompt “Press any key to continue” and to continue  hit any key .
Please wait………..
It will again prompt “Press any key to continue” and obviously press any key to continue.
5. Now a message box will appear showing
“Copy TempDrive Files to USB-Drive in about 15 minutes = Yes OR STOP = End Program = No”

Click “Yes”.
Now after this a message box will appear showing “Would you like USB-stick to be preferred Boot Drive U……………….”
Click “Yes”.
The next one asking “Would you like to unmount the Virtual Drive ?”

Click “Yes”.
Now wait some time and press any key…………….
Press any key again to close usb_prep8.
Now your USB you can Install Windows XP from the USB drive.
6. Insert your USB drive in the USB port and Reboot your computer. When starts the computer enter in the BIOS Setup and set the first boot preference as USB Hard Disk.Now Save and Exit from the BIOS Setup. Your computer will again restart and the following screen will appear.

Now Chose The TXT Mode Setup.After completing the partition, formatting and copying file the computer will restart again.
Now chose the GUI Mode Setup Option.
Wait for completing your installation.
I think this will help you to install XP from USB flash disk/drive especially in those computer without CD/DVD ROM.

Oracle Background Processes - Oracle 10g

Process Monitor	PMON	Responsible for cleaning up after abnormally terminated connections. Responsible for monitoring other server processes and restarting them if necessary Registers the instance with the listener dynamically (dynamic service registration). Restarts failed server processes and dispatcher processes
System Monitor	SMON	Temporary space cleanup Crash recovery apon restart Coalescing free space Recovering transactions active against unavailable files Instance recovery of failed node in OPS (Oracle parallel server) Cleans up OJB$ (Low Level data dictionary) Shrinks rollback segments Offline's rollback segments Other processes call the SMON process when required.
Distributed database recovery	RECO	Recovers transactions that are left in a prepared state because of a crash or loss of connection during a two-phase commit.
Checkpoint process	CKPT	The checkpoint process is charged with instructing the database block buffer writers to write the database buffer cache to disk, it then updates the data file headers and control file to indicate when the checkpoint was performed. There is a relationship with checkpoints and recovery time, the more checkpointing the less recovery time is need when a crash occurs. The ckpt process does not do the checkpoint but assists with the checkpointing process by updating the file headers of the data files. A checkpointing process involves the following: Flushing the redo log buffers to the redo log files Writing a checkpoint record to the redo log file Flushing the database log buffers to the data files Updating the data file headers and control files after the checkpoint completes
Database block writer	DBWn	Responsible for writing dirty blocks to disk when free space within the database buffer cache is low, it writes the dirty blocks from the buffer cache out to the disk. It uses the LRU (Least Recently Used) algorithm which retains data in the memory based on how long it has been since someone asked for that data. The database buffer cache is flushed to disk when the database issues a checkpoint when a server process can't find a clean reusable buffer after checking a threshold number of buffers every 3 seconds users process has searched to long for a free buffer when reading a buffer into the buffer cache Instance is shutdown tablespace is put in backup mode or offline segment is dropped If you have multiple CPU's then it is advised to run multiple database writers. Use the DB_WRITER_PROCESSES parameter to increase the number of database writers, the instance has to be rebooted.
Log writer	LGWR	Responsible for flushing to disk the contents of the redo log buffer located in the SGA. Both committed and uncommitted changes are written to the redo log buffer. The redo log buffer is flushed to disk before the data blocks are written to disk. The redo log buffer is flushed to disk every 3 seconds whenever a user commits a transaction when the redo log buffer is a third full or contains 1 Mb of buffered data before the DBWn process writes when a checkpoint occurs
Archive process	ARCn	Used when the database is in archive-mode, it copies the online redo log file to another location when LGWR fills up, these log files would be used to perform media recovery. There can be a maximum of ten archive processes running ARC0-ARC9. The LOG_ARCHIVE_MAX_PROCESSES parameter determines how many archive processes will be started (default is 1).
Manageability Monitor	MMON	Collects statistics to help the database manage itself. The MMON process collects the AWR (automatic workload repository) snapshot information which is used by the ADDM (automatic database diagnostic monitor), also MMON issues alerts when database thresholds are exceeded.
Manageability Monitor Light	MMNL	The process flushes ASH information to disk when the buffer is full, it also captures session history and database metrics.
Memory Manager	MMAN	Uses the the metrics collected to determine the ideal distribution of memory within oracle. It constantly monitors the database and adjusts the memory allocations according to workloads.
Job Queue Coordination	CJQ0	Used to schedule and run user jobs. It spawns job queue slave processes (J000-J999) which actually run the job.
Job Queue Process	J000-J999	These processes are what actually run the schedule jobs requested by CJQ0.
File Mapping Monitor	FMON	Maps files to immediate storage layers and physical devices. Results are normally kept in the DBMS_STORAGE_MAP view. Generally the 3rd party LVM (logical volume manager) supplier will supply a driver to map to.
Recovery Writer	RVWR	This process is started when you implement flashback logging, it logs the before image (taken from the flashback buffers) of an oracle block before it is changed, this is written to the flashback log files.
Change Tracking Writer	CTWR	This process tracks any data blocks that have changed which then RMAN can use to speed up backups as it will no longer need to read the entire data file to see what has changed.
Queue Monitor Coordinator	QMNC	Spawns and coordinates queue slave processes.
Block server process	BSP	Used in OPS and keeps each servers SGA in the clusters consistent with each other.
Lock monitor process	LMON	Used in OPS and monitors all instances in a cluster to detect a failure of an instance.
Lock manager daemon	LMD	Used in OPS and controls the global locks and global resources for the block buffer cache in a clustered environment.
Lock process	LCKn	Used in OPS and is the same as the LMD daemon but handles requests for all global resources other than database block buffers
Dispatcher process	Dnnn	Dispatcher processes that are used when using a shared server environment
Shared Server process	Snnn	Shared Server processes that are used when using a shared server environment
Oracle process spawner	PSP0	Process spawner has the job of creating and managing other Oracle processes.
Oracle shadow process	SHAD	Oracle's shadow process, could not find much on this process
Streams Advanced Queuing process	q000 - q???	I believe this is something to do with Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing   I believe this is something to do with Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing