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One might need to reinstall an operating system from time to time, but the net books and ultra-portable laptops
gaining popularity today have no optical drives.
What do you do when there is no optical drive in your PC and you want to install a new operating system on it?
Before you invest in an external drive, we will tell you about a more cost-effective solution. Why not install
Windows XP or Windows Vista from a USB flash drive instead? All you need are the following items:
½Y A desktop or laptop with Windows XP/Vista (according to the OS required to be dumped onto the USB
flash drive).
½Y An optical drive in the PC.
½Y The original Windows XP or Vista installation disk.
½Y A 1 GB or 4 GB USB flash drive for Windows XP/Vista respectively.
½Y A software called ͚Komku-SP-usb.exe͛ (for the Windows XP part) which can be downloaded from
http://download179.mediafre.com/b3tjl6ds2gfg/zlvkwwzmjmt/Komku-SP-usb.exe. Alternatively, you can
avail of the utilities from this month͛s CHIP DVD or search for these on http://download.chip.asia.
This step-by-step workshop will be in two phasesͶWindows Vista and Windows XP.
Step 1: Start Windows Vista, insert the pen drive into the computer͛s USB port. Start Command Prompt, type
͚diskpart͛ and press [Enter].
Step 2: Type ͚list disk͛ and press [Enter]. Carefully note down the USB flash drive͛s disk number listed here. In this
case it would be ͚Disk 1͛
Step 3: Type ͚Select disk 1͛ and press [Enter]. Here the Diskpart utility is instructed to choose the disk 1 as the
drive to be worked on.
Step 4: Type ͚Clean͛ and press [Enter]. This command clears out all the information of the volumes, partitions,
boot sectors and the MBR from the USB flash drive.
Step 5: Type ͚Create partition primary͛ and press [Enter]. This command will create a primary partition on the USB
flash drive.
Step 6: Type ͚Select partition 1͛ and press [Enter]. This command instructs the Diskpart utility to select the newly
created partition.
Step 7: Type ͚Active͛ and press [Enter]. This command will make the current partition (primary) active to enable
the USB flash drive to boot from.
Step 8: Type ͚Format fs=fat32͛ and press [Enter]. This command formats the selected drive partition using the
FAT32 file system.
Step 9: Type ͚Assign͛ and press [Enter]. This command assigns a drive letter to the newly formatted partition. As
there is no drive letter specified in the command line, the next available drive letter is assigned to the
drive.
Step 10: Exit from the Diskpart utility using the ͚exit͛ command and pressing [Enter]. Now insert the Windows
Vista DVD in the optical drive and type the command ͚xcopy E:\*.* /s /e /f F:\͛ and press [Enter]. This
command will dump all the contents of the Windows Vista DVD onto the USB flash drive. Your USB drive is
now ready to install Windows Vista on any computer. Just set the boot sequence in the BIOS of the
system to boot from the USB, insert the USB flash drive into the computers USB port and turn on the
computer. Follow the regular installation for Windows Vista.
Note: To know more about the Diskpart utility commands, browse through the URL
͚http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415͛. Installing Windows XP or Windows Vista from a USB flash drive is
much faster as compared to installing from a CD/DVD. A high-speed flash drive would make a difference.