***Arrived from YouTube? Skip down to "So how did I fix it?"***

A while ago I made a video on Installing XP to an Acer Aspire One via a USB Drive:

Unfortunately, I have had many messages with people having problems with this. One of them is "babyjoe00069” who says:

ive got an issue i was really excited when i saw the video on windows xp for the acer laptop well im following the steps n when i try to find a target path which would be the usb stick it tells me...

has NOT FAT FAT32 or NTFS Format and is not valid....., yet when i do the steps it is supposed to format it i dont understand what is wrong do i have to go find a kingston flash drive? im useing a cruzer disk 2 gb i went to wal mart all they had was a pny 2 gb im lost n really need this to wrk pls help

Yes, that is the type of poor spelling I receive on YouTube on a daily basis (no offense babyjoe, I assume you are young).

Anyway…

I have had this issue on my own 8GB Sony Flash Drive, whereby I would format with PEtoUSB and would get the following error:

and formatting the Stick through windows to FAT32 or NTFS would result in the following error when selecting "2”:

So how did I fix it?

EDIT: September 2010: Super easy way would be to use WinToFlash or try the below instructions (though the program has been updated and may look different)

You may not know but there is a GUI (Prettier) version of this setup, and is called WinSetupFromUSB. Format your drive in Windows to FAT32 or NTFS (NTFS will be faster in the text mode of setup), and select your CD in WinSetupFromUSB, your window should look like this:

Go ahead and click the GO button.

At this point you may receive an error about the MBR (especially if you can only format your drive to FAT32), just ignore that and go ahead. All of your files will be copied to the memory stick.

Now when you go to install from the USB, the startup may look a little different, but has the same principle:

• Boot to the USB and select "First Part of installation”
• Format the drive you want to install to
• let XP do the text mode setup of the install (that blue screen with the yellow bar), and reboot
• Select "2nd Part of Installation” and it will go through the graphic part of the install
• Reboot

Voila, you have now installed Windows XP via a USB drive. My recommendation would be to keep that drive as an install disc for the future, as they are cheap to buy now.

Did this work for you? leave a comment.