USB Flash Drive Booting & Installing Windows XP in your Netbook, Laptop and Desktop

It took a couple of hours to figure out there is a simple and new way to boot and install OS using USB flash drives in Netbooks, Laptops and even our desktops.

Note : Hardware that are older or that doesnt support Booting from USB ports cannot be used. So make sure your hardware's BIOS has support for booting through USB Floppy, USB Disk options. Consult your hardware's manual to find out.

Items needed:
1. USB Drive (more than 1 GB)
2. Your Windows XP installation Disk
3. WinToFlash - Free utility to make a USB drive bootable (NT, XP, Vista and Windows 7). Also it copies the OS installation files
4. Obviously a prep hardware - a working desktop or laptop with CD Drive.

How to make a bootable USB Flash drive?
Earlier, creating a bootable USB flash drive involved a tedious process of downloading a HP flash drive format utility and working with BartPE utility. But now, WinToFlash has been launced. The 0.5 beta version is really good and conveniently stable, such that it works as a final release version. WinToFlash saves the cumbersome process of formatting USB drives and copying disks with its own Wizard.

Phase 1 - Preparing USB Flash drive with OS install files
1. Download WinToFlash and run it
2. Proceed ahead with the default wizard option. It will automatically detect the USB drive and confirms with you to format it. Once permitted, it will format the USB drive.
3. It will ask for OS CD or the folder where OS installation files are stored. When the folder / CD Drive is selected, it will create the bootloader in USB drive and copy the OS installation files (In my case, I tried Windows XP). Thats it! Your USB flash drive is ready.
Phase 2 - Booting and Installing OS using the USB flash drive
4. Plug-in the USB flash drive into the target netbook, laptop or desktop's  USB port (this is the computer you wish to boot with USB flash drive and install OS)
5. Make sure the computer supports booting through USB and you have changed the BIOS settings such that the boot sequence order is set to USB Floppy or USB disk first.
6. Restart / Switch on the target computer.
7. As per BIOS settings, the BIOS will try to locate the presence of a USB disk, floppy drive. When it finds the boot loader in the USB drive, it will start booting from USB drive. Once booted, an option screen will be displayed.
8. Select "Text GUI setup" option (usually #1 in the list) to install XP or the OS from scratch.
9. Untill the first set of files are copied, the process is very slow because the USB ports in 99% of hardware works in only in USB 1.1 mode. It may take nearly 20-40 minutes  to see the welcome screen of Windows XP Graphic installation. From there it goes in rocket-speed and things get installed in less than 12 minutes. :-)
10. Thats it!

Hope this quick and dirty guide gives you a good idea. Booting and installing OS using USB Flash drives comes in handy when you have a failed CD Drive or to replace Linux OS with XP / Vista in Netbooks.

Blog sanity..

Those days when internal blogs were introduced, it was fun. People shared information, wrote their own articles, various subjects, unique bloggers and a whole new dimension of noon-time-wasting opened out.

Now as more and more people join the company, and many new people think that blog is more of a making-fun of others place. It's so sad, that only a few is continuing to post, while new people just copy-paste for the sake of posting. Also there is a new breed of comment-vultures, who vent out all their alter-ego's posing as "GUEST" in the comments section.

Altogether, the blogs is more of a trash now. Did I mention that I stopped blogging in our company's internal blogs?

The Half-hour guide to jumpstart with Zoho CRM

Under construction...

Usability Meet 2009 at iNautix, Chennai

I am attending the Usability Meet at iNautix on November 7, 2009 at Ascendas IT Park in Chennai. Some 13 companies are participating in the meet. 2 years ago, Satyam hosted such a meet, but it didnt catch up well later.

Anyone who likes to attend pls contact Mr. Arun of iNautix. Contact details below.

Arun Christian
Assistant Vice President
Usability and Graphics Team
iNautix Technologies India Private Limited, an affiliate of Pershing LLC, a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
http://www.inautix.co.in
Office: 91-44-22546000 Extension 1390, VOIP: 5064
Fax: 91-44-22540661

- Rajesh

Rebooting the mind at work!

Stack overflow, overload, system critical... all such alerts come up when a system is overloaded. And sometimes, a re-boot is very much necessary. Not only this applies to the non-life forms like Electronics, it is applicable for humans too.

For the past 20 days, I was very much in a state of "Mental Overload" at work and now slowly re-booting to start up fresh ! Some people take up vacations, they explore new interests, talk to friends etc. But in work, such a thing is not possible for everyone. During the past 20 days, I was down, tired and did only the basic jobs at work. After the 20 days, now I feel a lot better and my mind is fresh, thinking clearer, and feels energized. Unicorn is getting ready!

You don't need a Landmark Forum to re-build yourself... :-D

Maruti Suzuki Cars - Price List in 2D Map

Thought of preparing a 2D price map for all car models available from Maruti Suzuki India. Maruti aims for the mid-range to premium hatchbacks it seems. Click the image below to open full size.





Prices collected from www.marutisuzuki.com as on 15 October 2009. Accuracy not guarenteed.

One reason why Sulekha sucks sometimes...

I do use sulekha.com occasionally to sell my old items. Now a days, Sulekha.com has transformed into a aggressive Business directory along with a Classifieds section.

One reason I find that Sulekha.com sucks is because there is no clear welcome page for a visitor. There are 3 possible visitors for sulekha.com

1. One who comes looking for Online Classifieds
2. One who comes looking for Business Directory
3. One who comes from some other linking site knowingly or unknowingly.

The home page or landing page is a clear mess of everything. By throwing all the links in the home page, they have created a tough navigation for a classified seeker and Business seeker. You cannot predict which link will lead to what section!

Had there been a clear classification of services or atleast a search that has options to choose my search between Classifieds or Yellow Pages or Both, life would be much more easier in the home page. Right now, I have to click on the BUY/SELL tab or link in order to access classifieds. Oh, I just found now. There is a link on top,just below the Sulekha.com name. Nice, but not enough.

Long way to go.

- Rajesh