I followed instruction from Booting from USBand created a "bootable" USB using BartPE using a downloaded mini XP-SP3 iso (for letting BartPE extract its files). The USBstick is an "Intuix U3 USB Device" according to Windows and it is using Microsoft driver 5.1.2535.0 (Control Panel | System | Hardware | Devices).

I have a 'nVidia NForce2 Ultra 400' chipset
In my Phoenix - Award BIOS , 6A61B PA (= epox) bios ID I selected booting form USB-HDD (I also tried USB-FDD, USB-CDROM and USB-ZIP) first and even disabled booting from HDD. I also enabled "USB wakeup from S3/S4" , selected "OnChip USB V1.1+v2.0", "USB keyboard", "Extended USB Compatibility" and "Look for other boot devices".

My boot.ini (both on C-disk and on USB-stick) look like :


While booting contents of boot.ini gets displayed but if I choose last option (booting from USBstick) I get a message windows couldn't start because it couldn't read from the disk and suggests me to check path and disk hardware.

What is wrong and what should I do to solve the problem and become able to boot from USBStick

Don't use warez.

Try c:\peboot.bin refers to local disk, hence file \peboot.bin at the USBStick.

I changed it but it still doesn't boot from USB.
In fact, if I remove the harddisk it just enters Nvidia Boot Agent and after some scanning it returns telling me DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

So obviously it doesn't SEE my USBstick despite my BIOSsettings.
I checked the files on my USBstick (FAT):

I wonder why USB-HDD is being accepted in BIOS but not SEEN. It has been formatted with HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool prior to using pebuilder3110a .

Somethings else regarding that formatted tool : I have a 500 Gb external drive with 4 partitions. First one being 1.4 Gb FAT32 (so it COULD be formatted FAT to make it bootable). But as the other partitions contain over 125 Gb of data I don't want to destroy them . That HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool seems NOT te be able to format only the first partition. What other program can I use to format only that partition and prepare it for making bootable (I do have Paragon 9.0 legally licensed , but never used it)?

Regarding the remark about warez : I do have a valid XP-SP2 license but just want a much smaller installation for my USBstick so I'm just trying to figure out how it works and if it does make sense.

nLited input and SP3 input can cause problems with PEBuilder's BartPE file. Use a normal XP CD, preferably an SP2 version for best results.



And since we are talking about BartPE I will move this to the BartPE section of the forums.

Use Make_USB.cmd of USB_XP_Setup package to prepare your USB-stick
and Select 3) Add RAM BootSDI.img File and use 1-4
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=5306

Use LiveXP BootSDI.img file of about 110 MB prepared with WinBuilder
Download e.g. Stable Project lx92908cxb from amalux
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4111

LiveXP RAM BootSDI.img file is loading from USB-stick in 5 minutes and from Harddisk in few seconds.
Booting from RAMDISK in 30 seconds.

5 minutes!! Why would anyone choose this option??

Because it is faster than 6 minutes.



jaclaz

The advantage is that when LiveXP PE is booting from RAMDISK,
you are allowed to make changes and can remove your source disk (you are FREE from the source).
When booting BartPE ISO from CD / DVD you cannot make changes and
you are NOT allowed to remove the CD / DVD.

But normally I prefer to boot with LiveXP from RAMDISK in 30 sec using BootSDI.img File Installed on Harddisk.
Only in the case of complete Computer disaster (Recovery of Data) it might be wise to Boot from USB-stick in 5 minutes,
instead of Installing BootSDI.img file at that moment on your harddisk.

Well, I prefer booting plain old BartPE from my USB stick in less time than that.