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How do I create a bootable USB Flash Drive?

Follow these steps below to create a bootable USB flash drive. In any case, make sure to have a backup of all important data from your PC before you start. takeMS cannot be held responsible for whatever happens after following the described steps.

Unpack HP-USB.ZIP into a folder.

Plug in the USB flash drive.

Start HP-USB.exe.
Ensure that the tool has found the correct drive in the "Device" list. Change the file system to "FAT". Check the "Create a DOS startup disk" option, and in the "using DOS system files located at" field, enter the path to the "Files" subfolder, included in the ZIP file. You can now click the "Start" buton. The application will format the drive and copy the necessary boot files on your USB drive.

Reboot your system (with the BIOS set to boot from the USB drive) to check that it works.

When you boot the USB drive, bear in mind that not all PCs are set to boot from a USB device by default. You will probably have to make changes in BIOS to allow this, and the exact steps for this will vary widely from machine to machine. Some machines require that "Legacy USB keyboard support" is enabled to do this.

In almost every case, we have found that you must plug the USB drive directly into the computer, not through a hub , to allow it to boot, since devices plugged into hubs are not generally enumerated by BIOS at boot time.

If all goes well, your system should boot to the "A:" prompt. You can now customize your new boot drive with whatever programs and utilities you need. The thumb drive will boot like a floppy and run a DOS command line, so keep in mind that any utilities or files you copy to it will need to work as DOS applications.

If the first procedure doesn't work, try this:

Unpack MKBT.ZIP into a folder.

Plug in the USB flash drive and make a note of what drive letter is assigned to it.

Format the USB drive as a FAT16 device.
The format of the drive must match the format of the floppy. FAT16 will work on any thumb drive that is smaller than 4 GB.

Copy the bootsector information to the USB drive.
To do this, type the following command from the command line you used before:

mkbt -x bootsect.bin f:

This assumes that "f:" is the drive letter for the USB drive; if it's not, substitute the appropriate drive letter. Double check to make sure you are writing to the correct drive or you might overwrite the data found on another drive.

Copy all the files from the "Files" subfolder to the USB thumb drive.
Now you can copy any additional files you want to have present on the thumb drive when you boot it.

Reboot your system (with the BIOS set to boot from the USB drive) to check that it works.