how do you make a bootable flash drive for Vista install?

hedpe · 04-08-2007, 12:10 PM

Hi all,

I'm not sure where to put this, its not exactly related to linux... but

I'm trying to install Vista from a flash drive, the main guide is here:
http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/c...38D!1665.entry

I have absolutely no windows machine to do this on, but anyways none of it seems Windows specific. The guide simply formats the flash drive, and then copies all of the files from the Vista DVD to it. So that's what I did in linux:

Code:

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdb1
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flashdrive -t vfat
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom -t udf
cp -fr /mnt/cdrom/* /mnt/flashdrive
umount /mnt/flashdrive

Whenever I try to boot it off of the new machine, the lights on the flash drive flash that its active, and then i get "This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any key to try again"

I've verified the active boot flag is set:

Code:

x60s gnychis # fdisk /dev/sdb

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 6980.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

Command (m for help): p

Disk /dev/sdb: 16.2 GB, 16240345088 bytes
142 heads, 32 sectors/track, 6980 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4544 * 512 = 2326528 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1        6981    15859696    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

I'd greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks!
George

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 04-08-2007, 12:20 PM

I'm a bit confused here :-/ You have the bootable vista dvd (which will install the op/sys) but you are trying to use a flash disk to install vista?? This begs the question, Why?

hedpe · 04-08-2007, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by {BBI}Nexus{BBI}

I'm a bit confused here :-/ You have the bootable vista dvd (which will install the op/sys) but you are trying to use a flash disk to install vista?? This begs the question, Why?

because the machine i'm trying to install it on doesn't have a dvd-rom. So I'm using my linux machine to try and make a bootable flash to install it in the machine without a dvd-rom.

{BBI}Nexus{BBI} · 04-08-2007, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hedpe

because the machine i'm trying to install it on doesn't have a dvd-rom. So I'm using my linux machine to try and make a bootable flash to install it in the machine without a dvd-rom.

Oh, i see. You may have more success if you post your question in a Winblow$ forum, just ask them what files you need to copy from the dvd to the flash drive in order to make it bootable or take a look at the dvd readme/s, docs or whatever and see if it mentions anything about making a bootable floppy, then apply the technique to the flash drive instead.