hello, since i dont have an external CD drive and i really need to reinstall win xp in order to get rid of all the preinstalled junk and to get a clean system, i tried reinstalling xp with a usb stick.

so copied everything from the windows-cd to my pc and used a software called "usb multiboot 10" to copy it to a bootable usb-stick.
then i rebooted the dell mini with the usb-tick plugged in and got into the xp-setup. after the setup, which lastet for about an hour, i had to reboot again, and now it's stuck right after booting it with an error complaining about a "misconfigured harddrive" and it wont boot. what could be the problem here and how can i fix it?

has anyone else successfully gotten xp to install using an usb stick? if so, what software did you use to make the usb bootable?

thanks a lot!

[Dunhamzzz]

Was it an old copy of XP? If so it probably doesn't have the drivers for SSD.

We tried installing windows 98 (so we could use our 'xp upgrade' CD) on another laptop and it didnt recognise the SATA HDD, thankfully, SATA is something you can just turn on/off in the BIOS.

[ehmdjii]

thanks for your answer. it is winxp SP3, so i don't think it's the SATA drivers, since the install itself went fine, and i already got onto the XP desktop after the install. only starting with the next reboot, those problems occured.

[nollie]

After my Mini arrived about a month ago I had to reinstall XP SP3 Home on it. Having no external CD/DVD drive I just Googled how to properly mount the setup disk which came with it, and after several failed attempts of formatting the SSD it installed and still runs without problems.

[ehmdjii]

nollie, can you provide more information on how to mount that setup disk? or do you still have the link you found on google?

thanks a lot!

[nollie]

I'm sorry I can't find the specific link I used, but maybe this post could help you out?

I remember it did take a while sifting through articles on Google to find what I was after. If I come across it again I'll be sure to post the link.

[ehmdjii]

thanks nollie,

well that PE to USB software is pretty much exactly what i did. so i thought maybe there is another way?

this is the error message i get:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"

[iamwiz82]

Did you try booting off the USB key one more time, perhaps the install did not finish? For whatever reason my XP install had to reboot twice during install, and not realizing the issue I had pulled the USB stick and rebooted and got error regarding my MBR, IIRC. I simply put the stick back in, rebooted and chose it as my device and it loaded up Windows the first time; all was well.

[ehmdjii]

iamwiz82, thanks for your advise.
i tried booting with the USB again and choose the point "continue winxp" installation. unfortunately then i get an error about a missing or corrupt hal.dll .

[iamwiz82]

Try this method for installation, this is what I followed and it worked beautifully.
http://www.pctipsbox.com/installing-...b-flash-drive/