[vox-tech] creating a bootable USB key

[Thomas Johnston]

I have tried several of the procedures recommended in the replies and
I have encountered snags. I have kubuntu 10.04 (64 bit) and run XP (32
bit) under VirtualBox. I  tried the method mentioned by Harold (using
the diskpart under DOS) but the utility would not "see" my USB drive.
I have no trouble accessing the USB under VB with windows explorer but
diskpart would only see the virtual harddrive that XP is installed on.
Strange ...

I then tried using microsoft's own USB creator
(Windows7-USB-DVD-tool). It took awhile to get the necessary packages
installed before I could run the MS tool, but once I did I hit another
hurdle. The MS tool kept saying that I did not have a valid iso.
WTF?!?! I found this post though:
http://www.withinwindows.com/2009/11/01/use-the-windows-7-usbdvd-download-tool-with-custom-isos/

The author mentions: "It appears there are two (possibly more)
“navigation buoys” within UDF-formatted ISOs that point to important
chunks of the image called Anchor Volume Descriptor Pointers (AVDPs).
The first AVDP is somewhere near the top of the image. The last AVDP
is located in what appears to be the last logical block of the image.
(My guess is this is to support bi-directional reading.) So assuming
each logical block of the image is 2048 bytes large, one could also
assume the last logical block is –2048 from the end of the file,
right? Well, that’s what the tool assumes. It checks for the last AVDP
at the start of the last logical block, doesn’t find it, and bombs
out."

In the post you can download his tool to fix the UDF offset issue,
very easy to use. Once I did the MS tool had no trouble mounting the
ISO and copying the files to the USB. HOWEVER, it completed the copy
operation (after about 1 hour) and gave me an error about not being to
run the bootsect.exe. My copy of XP is 32 bit and the OS I am
attempting to put on the USB is 64 bit! I found a 32 bit bootsect file
online and used the the info in Orson's post to make the USB bootable
and started copying the files.

SO, hopefully when the files are done copying the stupid USB will
actually work.  I will let you know how it goes.

thanks for all the replies!

thomas





On Tue, Nov 16, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Orson Jones <orson.lugod at afriskito.net> wrote:
> On 11/16/2010 02:29 AM, Thomas Johnston wrote:
>> I have a windows 7 install disk that I would like to make into a
>> bootable USB key so that I can install the OS on a computer without an
>> optical drive. I have tried a number of different tutorials/methods on
>> my kubuntu 10.04 laptop (64 bit), but so far nothing has worked.
> <snip>
>> My question is, has anyone successfully made a bootable windows USB
>> key using Linux? If so, how did you do it?
>
> No, but I have done this: (requires a windows computer to create the usb)
> http://www.jaxidian.org/update/2009/08/28/98/
>
> Orson
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