Booting from a USB memory stick

[JimB]

I have done this before. However for some reason I can't retrace my steps to make my usb stick bootable. I was wondering if anyone out there has done this and made it work? If you have I'd be very interested in your advice.

I've been able to make it boot into linux but for some reason I can't format it right in order to get it to boot into windows (BartPe) http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

[Richard Myers]

Are you aware that the job of making your USB drive bootable may be simple or frustrating, depending on the hardware in the host computer and the size of the USB drive. (Some BIOSs treat all USB drives smaller than 512MB as floppy disk drives, unless you tell the BIOS to treat the USB drive as a hard drive or CD-ROM.)

And this HP utility works with some non HP flash drives. HP download

[JimB]

Yes... it's very frustrating. Especially since I was able to make my other 2gb memory stick bootable and I'm not able repeat the success on this 2gb stick. Thanks for the link I'll give that a shot also. I guess I'm just being a little lazy I could easily do what I need to do with a bootable CD. However, carrying around a memory stick is much easier than carrying around a CD.

I'm guessing that my problem is in the way that the stick is initially formated. I say that because I have no problems getting it to boot into linux.

[Richard Myers]

I take no delight in the fact that you are frustrated. I did not think it ever happened to you, Brother Jim! 

I thought I was the only one who gets frustrated with computer problems. 

[JimB]

Thanks for the sympathy. However, now it's a challenge and part of the fun will be making it work in the end.

I had partial success today using the HP Format utility that you linked to. However, after displaying the Windows XP splash screen it goes into a "Blue Screen of Death" with a 07B stop error.

I feel a little better since my limited research shows that I'm not the only one with this error. So... I'm almost there!