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bootable copy of windows on a USB flash drive

tomshardware.co.uk — ever have a problem with the windows registry, or a pesky virus? have no fear, fix it with a bootable copy of windows no further away than your pocket or key chain

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  • wisedude, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20That's not only conveniant, but very cool!
    • hammydude, on 10/12/2007, -3/+55wtf is so appealing about putting stories onto 14 pages when you can put them onto 3?
    • bhowell, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15"wtf is so appealing about putting stories onto 14 pages when you can put them onto 3?"

      More ads in "prime" locations as you read the story. Look for the print view if they have one. I think Tom's Hardware is wise to the print view loophole and doesn't have a print view that I can find...
    • poipoipoi, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10that's why no one bothers with Tom's anymore. Anandtech still has the print button, FTW.
    • Dracker, on 10/12/2007, -0/+40After following the link, put "print.html" after the last slash, and you get ONE page, with a LOT fewer ads.

      This works for all tomshardware articles.
    • BTime, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4This was news on SEPTEMBER 5, 2005. How about we try to digg stories on articles that have been available for even less than 30 days?

      Buried. It's cool, but front page news is certainly a bit more recent than SEPTEMBER 2005.
    • leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8"wtf is so appealing about putting stories onto 14 pages when you can put them onto 3? "

      A whopping 8 sentences on the first page.....


      And besides this isn't really a windows instll. It is a watered down perverted install that is only usable in an emergency.
    • TylerDurden0, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Perverted... really?
  • Popdmb, on 10/12/2007, -5/+26So old -- but useful articles like this get a free pass. A lot of Digg 3.0ers haven't had a chance to check it out yet.
    • 8086ed, on 10/12/2007, -11/+17Old, AND inaccurate.

      It's a "Pre-install Environment", thus the "PE." It is NOT a fully functioning copy of Windows. I never liked BartPE as much as Hiren's Boot CD
    • Kericr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Yeah I have to say that I used to rail on old articles making it to digg. Truth is though, useful information sometimes needs a refresh. "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
    • apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Not only that, but this article covers a lot of ground the previous submissions simply link the the bartPE homepage. So this is actually very helpful even though I've known about bartPE since the first digg frontpage story.
    • miltont, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree. There's so much info on digg sometimes, that it takes me a few cycles to get to all the articles I want to read. Even on days where work is slow, and I spend most of it on digg, I 'll still miss good stuff. I'll give Bart's a try...heard mix reviews on it.
  • glafira, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4Very nice.
  • Kericr, on 10/12/2007, -7/+57Is that an operating system in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?
  • buzzert, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Really good photoshop on that picture of the Windows XP thumbdrive!
    • YourTechSupport, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I know. I keep wanting looking for a link to purchase it!
      Too bad MS wouldn't let it happen in a million years.
  • Linkage155, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Very cool/usefull, and the art looks really nice :)
  • aniruddha23, on 10/12/2007, -10/+4Is there any such thing as a windows live cd?

    That would be cool too.
    • DigeratiPrime, on 10/12/2007, -7/+3http://www.reatogo.de/

      btw I reported this story, its just soo old and I have seen it several times too many.
    • kaytrio, on 10/12/2007, -6/+5It's probably a better idea to use a linux live cd... knoppix is a good one
  • JamesWilson, on 10/12/2007, -37/+15"ever have a problem with the windows registry, or a pesky virus?"

    No. I use linux. :)
  • TROGDOR42, on 10/12/2007, -16/+7No Mac version, no digg.
    /sarcasm
    • thexder, on 10/12/2007, -9/+5Mac version: enable disk use on your iPod, copy your Tiger install DVD to your iPod.
  • Radimus, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3It might be better if people understood the issues in trying to get BartPE on a flash drive. There are lots of techs that can't handle those little details. BartPE on a CD or UBCD4Win is a much simpler solution to accomplish.


    That being said, I have 3 different versions of bartPE on flash drives and external USB drives.

    A must have for most techs... as well as a drive full of PortableApps.
    • wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I can thoroughly understand your concerns, however reading through the instructions on Tom's Hardware site any "tech" worth their weight in salt can handle this. Besides, it's a USB drive, it's not like they are loading a the full OS on a machine... Hopefully they remembered to get their data off of it before formatting it.
  • arachnist, on 10/12/2007, -9/+4Now, the only OS that i haven't seen on an usb flash drive is OSX. But that one doesn't put windows above osx on my list of useable OSs. To be honest, that doesn't put it on the list even ;>
  • albator, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6You have to work on PC with a bios that support booting from USB, it mean that any MB made before like 2003 wont do the job.
  • crispyphil, on 10/12/2007, -27/+2My uncle develops systems on Compact Flash cards for security systems. Big whoop
    • apotropaic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Well thats great for your uncle... Does he make the software available for free? Can I boot from a compact flash card without getting an IDE converter? Big whoop for your uncle!
    • poipoipoi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9lol at the who-the-*****-cares-ness of it all!
    • wvdavis, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5And what do you do Johnny?
    • SourWorm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm the ruler of the entire universe and have done that and pretty much everything else .. so yeah.
  • kaytrio, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Would you guys suggest using Bart PE? Are there any better ways of doing this?
  • daddyfizz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1just search for miniPE on any "sharing" site.... awsome boot cd with lots and lots of tools
  • JustMatt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I love how they say "you'll always have a compatible replacement no further away than your pocket or keychain" as if I would always carry this with me. As if I would expect for Windows to constantly be crashing and having boot errors.
  • djphatjive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+2My god, I have had one of these for about 4 years. I have a Windows 2000 pro one too. I used pebuilder to do it too. Nothing new. No digg. I have used it like 3 times. Its not even full XP. Its like a GUI that looks like XP and lets you run some programs that you have put onto the drive. Its meant to fix problems with the machine its ran on. That's it. It can't do anything else. You can't even take the CD out of the drive. Anyway laterz!
    • usbserial, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Hey, how about instead of saying "no digg", you just ignore this and don't comment? Wouldn't that be the day?
  • therealduckie, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1this is a dupe from 6 months ago
  • NeoMatrixJR, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0screw that...you don't need bart pe. I have a "full" copy of windows XP that I stripped down with nlite in my car pc and runs on a CF card. Go check out www.mp3car.com and search the forums for "ewf" or embedded
  • georgelogy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Yes this is quite old, and a duplicate, but it is good information to make a tool for data recovery if your Windows installation dies on you.
    • winstonpr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Isn't that the whole idea about digg? Even if information is old, if enough people found it interesting it will resurface to inform and entertain the up until know unknowing. It not about newsvalue, but relevance and interest for me.
  • romulusnr, on 10/12/2007, -10/+3Why run afoul of MS and WGA and just put a linux distro on your thumbdrive instead.
    • Clbck, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Great idea! I have another one; shut the ***** up. :)
  • joevill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Awesome find! Thanks for the link, I digg it!
  • mikevickrocks, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6That HP Tool mentioned on the second page has long been dead (404 Error). Along time ago, I uploaded it. Here's the direct download link.

    http://www.ipodwizard.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=8274&d=1146429146
  • GS13, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Good and old Digg but still very nice to see again
  • mcgowanbl, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is actually really hard to do. Just making the Bootable BartPe CD with a working virus/Spyware removal, cdburn, and HD imaging app that actually works will probably take more then a day or two on your first try.
    • GrendelT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Yeah, I'm baffled with it right now, got a hal.dll error on first attempt.
      Now I'm trying the ramdisk fix and the Server2k3-SP1 won't extract because I'm not running that OS.

      The story has *horrible* typos/grammar/etc., the links are a bit out of date, but a good general guide overall. digg++
    • GrendelT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2nevermind - i fig'd it out. (stupid oversight on my part)

      But the guide could be rewritten to make it a *bit* easier to read.
  • thexder, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Actually the TechTool Pro Protege is the Mac version
    http://www.micromat.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=34&Itemid=49
  • njbraun, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Nice and all, but I'll wait till they build in multiprocessor support :/
  • DelSolMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I wonder if I can use a portable harddrive and put a bunch of games on it.
  • lyzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I can't believe that no one had mentioned that the virus could just hop to the pen drive's OS. If any machine has been compromised trying to bring it back up with the same OS is not the best solution.
    • Radimus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1not really, the most common method of a USB bootable bartPE is an ISO mounted in RAM. Therefore the OS is only in ram and the virii couldn't directly infect the ISO itself.

      The most common BartPE implementation is via CD which is obviously readonly.
    • lyzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1With bart and ROM you are correct. The article is about a flash drive which is not ROM.
    • Radimus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Virtually every "stable/reliable" version of USB bootable of PE is from a ramdrive mounted ISO.
      The USB issue is typically due to the OS as it starts up re-initializing the USB bus, which causes the OS to loose the files during startup. They solved that issue by making an ISO and mounting it to RAM, then the USB initilization isn't an issue. The issue becomes, the PC needs sufficient RAM to mount the ISO and the run the OS. 64MB + size of ISO.
  • cyberpear, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1For recovery purposes, it is probably best to have a read-only media, but for everyday use, it is great to have an editable media.
  • fmarkos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Any ready torrent image of this, we can just copy to a usb stick? No time/patience to do all these steps myself. :-)
  • thedrs, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0anyone know of a recent glx enabled linux usb drive installation (with latest ati drivers) ?
    [korrora is outdated and doesn't work on my machone's radeon 9000)]
  • BTime, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Digg seems like a great idea but when a story nearly a year old hits the front page, what the heck are you people thinking????
    • magstheaxe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Well, I'm pretty new to digg and _I_ hadn't seen it.
  • MrHusar, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Don't forget to pack some security apps and tools for your new corporate espionage picnic basket...
  • SgtAndrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Great...Now when Windows Crash ever few weeks i can use this to transfer all the settings.
  • jtoso, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Could never get this to work right. Boot from USB.. Invalid disk or no operating system found. IT'S RIGHT THERE! DAMN IT! Someone should put up a working version as a torrent :)
    • Radimus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1there are working ghost images as torrents. Search for bartpe, minipe, winpe, etc
    • lyzz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is most likely due to problems with the boot sector. Google it :)
  • gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1I have a hard time seeing where people can get all worked up about this ...

    Oh wait .. that;'s right .. the C: drive booting requirement .. it's so 1980's. I see all the windows fanboi's are modding down all the anit microshaft comments, so I guess you'll have to go that extra mile and mod this one down too, but at least take the time to read it first, it might

    Ok let's see what you get with the hardware... 15 interrupts total at the hardware level (several of which you can't even use as they are reserved), forced "C" drive booting crap unless you use your bios to do some fancy juggling, which leads to a dishonorable mention for the archaic bios (hello EFI, too bad windows doesn't support it -- except somehow Apple pulled it off).

    On the software front you have over a ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND viruses, not to menion who knows how much spyware, malware, the forced Internet Exploder browser -- which has far far too much system level access and which you still can't uninstall without a hack, applications that you can't actually QUIT from a menu item (see internet exploder and porn popups).

    Ok, now you can mod me down, and I didn't even mention once that my Intel Mac Mini, running EFI can boot XP from ANY DRIVE that I tell it to so no C drive hardware limitation, natively has more interrupts, at hardware level, than you can shake a stick at AND runs OSX in a dual boot environment. With 10.5 coming up and all the rumors flying who knows what's next. And let's not forget this company doesn't even really support windows on their hardware yet -- but they managed to get windows booting from EFI in a couple of months from release of their hardware.
  • drwiii, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I really, really wish this were the future of Windows. The operating system would be completely isolated from all the cruft and add-ons that get layered on top of it.

    The base OS would be supplied in ROM, and any patches or drivers would go into flash. There could be two physical switches on the unit. One to temporarily unprotect the flash area for updates, and another to bypass or even format the flash area and boot clean if there's a problem.

    If Microsoft did something like that, and then enforced at the kernel level which individual applications could read/write to which directories (meaning no more littering files all over the disk), Windows would be so much more pleasant to work with.
  • Mattman723, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Hey I wonder what the ETA is on my Microsoft Flash Drive I was promised all those months ago...
  • Jakkaru, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2i really dont understand how something so old and something thats been posted on digg SO many times can get so many diggs.
    ah well.
  •  

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