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I need to install Windows XP on my machine that currently runs Ubuntu 10.10. I have a slipstreamed ISO for XP and only a USB to boot from. I do not have access to another Windows machine, and my Windows virtual machine does not recognise my USB drive. The solution needs to be purely linux-based.

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I tried chainloading the ISO from grub4dos but due to the small amount of RAM (512MB) that option is also out for now. – schajee Nov 8 '10 at 17:43
you need it in VM or you need it on bare metal? – Call me V Nov 8 '10 at 18:21
bare metal; i need to replace my Ubuntu installation – schajee Nov 8 '10 at 18:35
If you're still thinking of using VM and the VM is Virtualbox OSE, then you need to install the one from virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads. The OSE version has no USB support and maybe that's your problem. – danizmax Nov 9 '10 at 18:45

4 Answers

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You can sure use UNetbootin. Although there are a few important things to be aware of, or else it won't work:

First, be sure to format you usb key to NTFS and flag it as bootable -- you can use gparted to do that (sudo apt-get install gparted). Then run UNetbootin with your usb key already mounted. On its interface, select "Diskimage" and then browse for your .ISO file. Check the "Show all drives" box (so it can find your NTFS formatted usb key) and select the right drive (be careful!) -- on my case, it was "/dev/sdd1".

Click "Ok" and wait. It takes a long time to finish copying all the files. So wait.

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up vote 1 down vote

This might work for bare metal> http://ansi.interblc.com/2010/02/06/howto-boot-iso-images-via-grub2-with-ubuntu/. of course it could also just make the installer puke...haven't tried it.

Another option might be booting bartpe from usb and staging the installation files in an i386 folder like you were doing an oem install and copying the boot sector from the iso to the HD. this can get really hairy, but I got it to work once.

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up vote 1 down vote

This utility will run in Linux (presumably it works with Ubuntu):

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

It says you can just give it an ISO file and it will make the USB stick a bootable copy of that ISO. Then boot off the USB device from the BIOS.

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it's in the 10.10 reps also :) – user2413 Nov 27 '10 at 12:08
The new version unetbootin doesn't support ntfs usb sticks anymore. – user76673 Jul 12 '12 at 22:50
up vote 1 down vote

You can use UNetBootin, i think, but you need unetbootin-494 for it to work, because a newer version than that won't find drives formatted to NTFS. I installed my Windows 7 on that way and now I'm trying it with Windows XP.

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