Install XP from USB - safe?

[pulck]

Is installing XP from USB safe or even actually possible on the 311c?

I have seen a number of threads where people have run into problems, but no success stories or guides yet. I haven't attempted it because I'm scared of screwing up my machine.

What I would ideally like is to create a dual boot system (XP/Hackintosh). But as I don't have an external DVD drive or an XP installation disc, I've created a slipstreamed XP SP3 disc from the files on my 311c as per this guide:http://www.howtohaven.com/system/cre...etupdisk.shtml. Now I need to turn this into a bootable USB stick which actually works.

Any help or warnings appreciated.

[Whiteblade]

It is possible but installing xp from usb with the 311 is a little different. You need 3 programs: Wintoflash, winrar or 7zip, nlite. You need to slipstream the nvidia chipset drivers. Make an iso image with nlite. Then use wintoflash to put the xp to the usb. That is generally what you need to do. For more detailed guide search the forum, there's 4-5 guides. As a sidenote you need to install OS X first if you want to dual boot.

[pulck]

Thanks, Whiteblade, this is very helpful.

I've just done a quick search on these forums but can't find the guides you referred to. Maybe I'm just being dumb.... Don't suppose you can point me in the right direction, please?

[Whiteblade]

It is easier to write: 1) extract the nvidia chipset driver with winrar/7zip 2) use nlite to slipstream 3) make an iso image with nlite 4) extract the iso image with winrar/7zip 5) use wintoflash to put the custom xp to usb. 6) Select usb to boot first on bios. If anything is unclear ask, I will help. This has worked for me, but I can't guarantee anything.

[pulck]

It is easier to write: 1) extract the nvidia chipset driver with winrar/7zip 2) use nlite to slipstream 3) make an iso image with nlite 4) extract the iso image with winrar/7zip 5) use wintoflash to put the custom xp to usb. 6) Select usb to boot first on bios. If anything is unclear ask, I will help. This has worked for me, but I can't guarantee anything.

Brilliant. Will give it a go. Thanks again.

[pulck]

Hi Whiteblade. I did everything as you explained. Using nLite I created an ISO and slipstreamed a bunch of drivers from the folder 'SwSetup' which I found in the root folder of my C drive. These included the nForce storage drivers and several chipset drivers, amongst others. (BTW I selected 'GUI attended' in the 'unattended mode' settings.) I then unzipped the ISO and transferred to my 8GB USB stick using Wintoflash.

All this seemed to work fine and I didn't get any errors.

When I boot up with the USB stick plugged in, I get the boot up options as expected and then select the default option, which is the 'GUI' mode setup I selected in the settings. However, my machine seems to ignore the setup sequence and then just boots up my current installation of XP.

Is there something I'm missing out?

[pulck]

I've answered my own query... I was selecting the wrong boot-up option. You need to select option 1 ('Text mode setup') and complete the initial installation sequence before selecting option 2 ('GUI mode setup').

All worked well in the end (it took over 2 hours though) and I'm now using a clean installation of XP.

One small thing that didn't work, though, is bypassing Windows activation. I followed the instructions given here: http://www.howtohaven.com/system/create ... -faq.shtml which is supposed to cancel having to re-activate your installation, but it obviously didn't work as I was asked to activate within 30 days. Not a biggy, as the activation worked absolutely fine, but aren't I right in thinking you've only got a few opportunities to re-activate before your activation code becomes invalid?

[pulck]

Ok, having managed to perform an XP installation from USB with relative success, I'm now ready give it a go installing OSX and creating a dualboot system. I realise I will have to install XP from scratch again, but I now have more confidence in that process. However, the OSX and dualbooting installation seems more complicated....

As this is quite scarey for someone like me - although I did manage to Hackintosh my desktop a few years ago - so I'd be very grateful if anyone could point out potential pitfalls. This is how I was going to attack it (all taken from LeMaurien's excellent guides):-

1. Using Disk Utility, format 8GB USB stick (GUID partition table/HFS + Journaled), then transfer OS 10.6 retail disk to the USB stick and use Lizard to put the Chameleon bootloader on the installer [instructions taken from http://mymacbookmini.blogspot.com/20...aller-usb.html]
2. Boot with new OSX installer and format Mini311c's internal drive as GUID partition table / HFS + Journaled, install OSX and install the 10.6.4 combo updater. Then install EFI using 'HPM311DP HF6 installer.pkg'. This should give me a bootable Hackintosh [again this info is taken from the above link]
3. Boot into OSX and install 'Bootcamp Assistant for Hackintoshes', use it to create a new Windows partition [this info came from http://mymacbookmini.com/guides/dual...amp-assistant/]
4. Restart system booting from my trusty XP installer USB stick and install XP on the new partition (reformatting partition as NTFS)
5. Reboot with OSX USB installer and, using Terminal commands given in the above guide, restore Chameleon bootloader.

Any guidance, caveats or general shouting would be very welcome....

Oh, and here is some sideline info about my system in case it has any bearing:-

- I have no external optical drive, that's why I'm attempting this just using USB sticks;
- I have official HP BIOS firmware version F.16, dated 26th Nov 2010;
- My Mini 311c is model number 1101-SA.


UPDATE:

I've just completed Step 1 above, but am unable to boot up properly with the OSX installer. After seeing the Chameleon bootloader, I choose OSX installer, but then get a kernel panic. Why might this be? Is it because I have to use a very specific BIOS version?

[Whiteblade]

Glad that xp install worked. the activation process is normal you have if I remember correctly 15 times before you have to contact Microsoft.
Hackintosh/dual boot help: viewtopic.php?f=62&t=3697&p=23689&hilit=hackintosh #p23689
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=3888&p=25486&hilit=hackintosh #p25486

[pulck]

Thanks for the pointers, Whiteblade. However, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of help on those pages with dualbooting OSX and XP. Most people are understandably keen to upgrade to W7. I'm just a cheapskate with no W7 install disk.

Actually I've had a bit more success doing it the way I was trying. I had missed something out when I was making the OSX USB installer the first time, and when I tried it again it worked! Installing OSX was actually quite straightforward.

But....

What I'm struggling with now is to get XP to dualboot alongside it. I get as far as creating a new partition to put XP on and then I reboot with my XP USB installer in place. I can then do the text-mode installation part of XP absolutely fine. The system then reboots to carry out the GUI part of the XP installation and it has problems booting the new partition (error given is that the file "\system32\hal.dll" is missing or corrupt).

However, using the new bootloader that nLite automatically puts on my USB stick, I'm able to complete the installation by selecting the boot option "Boot rdisk 1 partition 3" (which is the partition that XP is half-installed on). So then the XP installation completes absolutely fine... but the only way I can actually boot XP is to use the bootloader from the USB stick, selecting partition 3 each time. And the only way I can boot OSX is to use the bootloader off the OSX USB installer. (Hope that makes sense.) So somehow I've ruined the bootloader on my internal drive.

Anyway I'll do a bit more digging around to see if I can get this to work, hopefully without doing any serious damage. As I don't really understand how bootloaders work, this may require a bit of reading up.


UPDATE: I've now managed to get XP to boot fine again. I followed the instructions for editing the 'boot.ini' file given here: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/index. ... &p=1468736 which means that my Mini just atuomatically boots up XP without any boot options. I can still get to OSX using the Chameleon bootloader on my USB installer, but it would be nice not to have to plug it in each time. Incidentally booting into XP from Chameleon doesn't work. I just get a disk error.

Why does this bootloader business have to be so complicated???