Does anyone know how to make vista boot from a flash drive?

Not stealing testament from what yagelski has said. There might actually be a much easier way. The problem is Vista won't start installation on a USB interface no matter what.It is embedded in its OS.

Using a combination of USBoot. Org and VMWare. USBoot.org/tiki-index.php (Installing Windows XP first) Then use follow the following guide.

You will need -A Vista Build -VMware Workstation version 5 -Vmware Diskmount Utility -Disk2Disk by gher Grounds (or Nortons Ghost) -Partition Magic 8 -A BIOS that can boot from USB Drives (there pretty common these days) 1. Setting up a new virtual machine - Click create new virtual machine - Choose Custom - New Workstation 5 - Guest Operating system Windows with Longhorn (Experimental) - Give it at least 256mb of RAM - Do not use a network connection - Choose create new virtual disk - Click IDE - Make the virtual disk size at least 12gb and click allocate disk space now - Finish up 2. Boot up Vista in VMware - If you've got a disk image (.iso) you can use that but if you've got a DVD you can alo use that - Go to Install Now - Use SHIFT+F10 to bring up a command prompt - From the command prompt type diskpart - Then type List Disk (displays a list of disks that Vista can see) - select disk 0 (your virtual disk) - create partition primary (creates one big partition on your virtual disk and doesn't affect your physical disk) - list partition (lists all partitions) - select partition 1 - format (formats your virtual disk to NTFS) - type exit to exit diskpart - type exit again to exit the command prompt 3.

Restart your Virtual Machine - t ESC as you are starting the virtual machine up - Select CD ROM - Install Vista normallly (this will take ages) 4. Use the Diskmount Utility to see the Disk in Windows Explorer http://www.vmware.com/pdf/VMwareDiskMount.pdf that explains how to use it 5. Partition Magic 8 Use partiton magic 8 to format you external hard drive into at least 2 partitions (one for space and one for the Vista OS) and make the first partition as big as your virtual disk.

Then make the second partition as big as you want because that will be were you keep all your windows files. You can dual boot it with OSX86 and Linux just by making some extra partitions (I used the OSX86 installation Disk Utility to make my partitions but partition magic will be fine).6. Copy your Virtual Disk Use Disk2Disk to make a direct copy of your virtual disk and dump it on your 12gb partition Similarly you can use nortons ghost but I havent tryed that.

You should now be able to boot Vista with your external HD provided your BIOS supports booting from USB drives. If you want a boot menu you can either use a Linux OS to make one or change the BOOT. INI file in Vista but I don't know how to do that.

This will probably also work with SATA _ I have actually tried this myself and have only gotten halfway threw the tutorial and I am currently running XP SP3 from the drive with some excellent boot times. However I have heard once you install vista on a external hard drive boot times suffer A little, So I am still on the fence myself about what to do. Let me know how you make out.

Kind Regards, XDS.

From "Kevin's Blog" cited as the source below

This will walk through the steps to create a bootable USB flash drive for the purpose of installing a Vista or Windows 7 OS. These instructions assume that you have a computer with Windows Vista installed on it. Required: - USB Flash Drive (4GB+) - Microsoft OS Disk (Vista / Windows 7) - A computer running Vista / Windows 7 Step 1: Format the Drive The steps here are to use the command line to format the disk properly using the diskpart utility.Be warned: this will erase everything on your drive.

Be careful. - Plug in your USB Flash Drive - Open a command prompt as administrator (Right click on Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command Prompt and select “Run as administrator” - Find the drive number of your USB Drive by typing the following into the Command Prompt window: diskpart list disk - The number of your USB drive will listed. You’ll need this for the next step.

I’ll assume that the USB flash drive is disk 1. - Format the drive by typing the next instructions into the same window. Replace the number “1” with the number of your disk below.

Select disk 1 clean create partition primary select partition 1 active format fs=NTFS assign exit - When that is done you’ll have a formatted USB flash drive ready to be made bootable. Step 2: Make the Drive Bootable Next we’ll use the bootsect utility that comes on the Vista or Windows 7 disk to make the flash drive bootable.In the same command window that you were using in Step 1: - Insert your Windows Vista / 7 DVD into your drive. - Change directory to the DVD’s boot directory where bootsect lives: d: cd d:\boot - Use bootsect to set the USB as a bootable NTFS drive prepared for a Vista/7 image.

I’m assuming that your USB flash drive has been labeled disk G:\ by the computer: bootsect /nt60 g: - You can now close the command prompt window, we’re done here. Step 3: Copy the installation DVD to the USB drive The easiest way is to use Windows explorer to copy all of the files on your DVD on to the formatted flash drive. After you’ve copied all of the files the disk you are ready to go.

Step 4: Set your BIOS to boot from USB This is where you’re on your own since every computer is different. Most BIOS’s allow you to hit a key at boot and select a boot option.

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