How to make a USB flash drive bootable

When preparing a new XP build for my company I found that the easiest way to distribute it is through USB flash drives (our WAN is very slow!) The following steps show how to make a flash drive bootable. Please note than some older drives cannot be made bootable, and some PCs are a bit picky about which drives they will boot from.

I have had most success with a 16GB Sandisk Cruzer

Before you start you will need:

Windows Enabler - http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/speedload/Enabler.htm
HP USB Format Utility - http://h50178.www5.hp.com/local_drivers/17550/SP27608.exe

1. Make sure the flash drive you are going to make bootable is empty, or the contents is backed up as this will format it.

2. Extract “Windows Enabler” to a new directory and run Windows Enabler.exe

3. Check that it is set to “on” as shown in screen shot (turn on/off by left clicking icon in taskbar):



4. Install the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (SP27608.exe)

5. Run the above tool from the icon on desktop, it should automatically detect any USB flash drives connected to the system:



6. Check the correct device is selected in drop down box at the top, make sure the file system selected is FAT32.

7. Check the box labelled “Create a DOS startup disk”

8. Click on the currently greyed out “using internal MS-DOS system files” this will then become available, click again to select.

9. If required enter a Volume label.

10. Click start. The flash drive will now be formatted and the files necessary for booting into DOS created.