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65 Responses for "How To Make a USB Flash Drive Bootable"

1. Nash October 16th, 2007 at 11:08 am 1

   thanx ray you wouldn’t believe i was trying to do this today…
   thanx a lot.

2. Raymond October 16th, 2007 at 11:24 am 2

   What a coincidence Nash
   After you’ve tried it, please let me know if it works for you.

3. Nash October 16th, 2007 at 11:41 am 3

   it actually happened a few times well ,i needed or needed to know something really bad and just by typing Raymond.cc in my browser my answer was their. truly im on your site everyday and i mean everyday from your blogs which i read on a daily basis just keeps me coming back everyday which is great because i love your site its user friendly everything about it is awesome also i think you are the best blogger their is…

4. Michael Y October 16th, 2007 at 9:42 pm 4

   i heard that there is a limition to supported size of the USB (cant be too big and cant be too small)
   Is this true?

5. Jabka Atu October 17th, 2007 at 7:23 am 5

   Another way to extract any boot loader is by dd :
   dd if=device of=file bs=ASinFormat count = 1 //By only one sector.

6. Sakar October 18th, 2007 at 2:24 am 6

   i was so looking for this .thanks

7. How To Make a USB Flash Drive Bootable « isrish on Net! October 18th, 2007 at 6:27 pm 7

   [...] 2; Go to “USB Mass Storage Device Configuration”, select “Emulation Type” and set it to “Harddisk”. Go [...]

8. Chandan Somani October 18th, 2007 at 10:08 pm 8

   I have INTEL D102GGC MDB, can i am able to boot computer using USB….

   I want to knoe which BOIS does intel D10GGC comes with or to know it……….

9. limchingyong October 19th, 2007 at 7:47 pm 9

   Toms Hardware provides how to boot the tiny version of windows using PEbuilder…
   http://www.tomshardware.com/2005/09/09/windows_in_your_pocket/

10. alex October 22nd, 2007 at 9:48 am 10

    i am having a problem running the bbie. i downloaded it and extracted both the files on there and ran the bbie.exe then a cmd looking thing flickers on my screen once and disappears. then i go into cmd and type in bbie and it says that it is not a recognizable command.

    any help?

11. alex October 22nd, 2007 at 9:54 am 11

    nvm i got it working.

12. Raymond October 22nd, 2007 at 10:07 am 12

    Alex, you need to run Command Prompt first. Then from there you run bbie.exe

13. alex October 22nd, 2007 at 10:24 am 13

    yea i got the bbie and mkbt working just as you showed in your example. what im doing is i am using both of your articles, this one with the bootable flash drive and also “Recover Windows Login password within minutes.” what i am doing is trying to instead of using a cd drive (or floppy drive as you show in your example), i am trying to boot from my flash drive on my school computer that i will use to recover the admin login passwords with (just for fun :p). so far i have writen the boot image to my flash drive. now i just have to wait till tomorrow to go to school and figure out how to configure the bios to boot from my flash drive. do you think if i can get it to boot from my flash drive that it will work and i will get the upload.txt on my flash drive and from that i can send to the website to decrypt the passwords?

14. David Dionne October 26th, 2007 at 2:47 am 14

    EXCELLENT WORK!!

    Does anyone know if the source to BBIE and MKBT are available and if so, where it might reside? If not, does anyone know if they have been ported to linux?

15. David Dionne October 26th, 2007 at 2:56 am 15

    Second question…

    Does anyone know if there exists an aplication that can test the bootability of a usb key? I ask because it just takes SOOOO long to run through the bios to see if it boots.

    For the last 2 or so months I have been trying to create a bootable RedHat Enterprise 5 USB Install key. The iso is about 3.4G and I’ve copied that to a 4GB USB key and I”ve tried the following without success:

    1. FAT32, Syslinux
    2. FAT32, GRUB
    3. EXT2, Extlinux
    4. EXT3, Extlinux
    5. EXT2, GRUB
    6. EXT3, GRUB

    The DVD installer uses Isolinux to boot and I am pulling my hair out….I KNOW, KNOW!!! and I will just try mkbt on the ISO file, but I WANT TO GET THIS DAMN THING BOOTING ON MY OWN WITH GRUB OR SOME DERIVITIVE OF SYSLINUX ALSO.

    I thought that VMServer would be a great way to test the bootability of USB devices but VMServer’s Guest’s BIOS do not appear to support USB booting (grrrrrrr)

16. alex October 29th, 2007 at 4:58 am 16

    hi raymond. i was just wondering how u can make your usb flash drive nonbootable or remove the boot from it. is there any way to get rid of it or remove the iso image that i burned to it?

17. John Wilbye October 30th, 2007 at 4:26 pm 17

    Is it possible to transfer the floppy disk info created by the XP automated system recovery backup to the USB flash drive and use this instead of the floppy when performing an automated system recovery?

    Thanks JW

18. and**** November 14th, 2007 at 5:15 am 18

    really, how to remove that boot image? or maybe it is possibe to turn it off when you do not need it, and turn on etc.

19. Bob November 17th, 2007 at 1:53 am 19

    I want to take a bootable dvd and load the image from it to a USB Flash Drive and boot off the flash drive. Is that possible?

20. Stirner November 20th, 2007 at 10:42 pm 20

    @David Dionne

    try qemu it works with usb stick, floppy, cd and hd images.

    Qemu is for linux and windoz, it is very light and it doesn’t mess your winz registry.

    Cheers
    Stirner

21. blurry November 21st, 2007 at 3:28 am 21

    woopss…can`t make my kingston usb pen drive bootable. donno wats the problem. pendrive or me? ehe…

    dis is wat i`ve done…
    1st..extract my winxp iso image using bbie…
    2nd…write image1.bin to my pen drive using mkbt…

    but after dat…when i try to open my usb pen drive…windows said dat my usb drive not formatted?

    wat shud i do?

22. links for 2007-11-26 « Random Musings November 27th, 2007 at 1:17 am 22

    [...] How To Make a USB Flash Drive Bootable » Raymond.CC Blog (tags: tutorial usb howto reference boot recovery linux) [...]

23. Bryan Anderson December 1st, 2007 at 11:30 am 23

    Hey, I have had the same problem with making a bootable jump drive as
    blurry. Any ideas on what to fix it with? i want to install F8 off of it but i cant get it to boot because it wont format.

24. azakive December 2nd, 2007 at 5:25 pm 24

    hi,i also have the same problem as blurry and bryan. I extracted from winxp mce using the bbie command and got the image1.bin file. but after writing that to my kingston flash drive using the mkbt command the flash drive becomes un-formatted. any ideas? btw ur blog is totally cool and it has just the kind of information i want about computers.keep it up.

25. Prince December 20th, 2007 at 6:33 am 25

    when I use the MKBT command i got an error stating “MKBT is not recognised as a interanal or external command, operable program or batch file.”

26. Raymond December 20th, 2007 at 8:47 am 26

    Prince, make sure that MKBT is at the right location when you run it in command prompt.

27. Prince December 21st, 2007 at 1:17 am 27

    Well I was able to burn the image on the flash driver; however, when i try to boot from the flash drive, I got “non-system disk or disk error.” what am i doing wrong?

28. Kimberly December 21st, 2007 at 3:55 am 28

    hey raymond, ineed ur help in cracking an account. can we commnicate through email. to sum it up, my mate , i feel is having affairs outside of our relationship, i am a new mom. i thought about getting a p.i. but why spend the dough when i can start my own investigation. his job sends him in and out of town, he is always online!?

29. EMUNDO December 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am 29

    ya , reynolds is the best in the wold ! yup !

30. Michael January 1st, 2008 at 5:20 am 30

    I too have a Kingston flash drive and am having a “Disk not formated” error, any work-a-rounds or suggestions?

31. durgesh mishra February 16th, 2008 at 11:04 pm 31

    dear sir,
    pls provide me the method to mount usb pen drive on red hat linux 8.

    thanks & regards
    durgesh mishra
    pcs technology limited

32. Tevin February 21st, 2008 at 5:54 am 32

    My bios will only only me to choose between 1DE 0, IDE 1, !DE 2, !DE 3, SCSI, ATAPI ZIP and CD ROM. Which would be the option to boot from a USB Drive? Thanks!

33. sandeep February 26th, 2008 at 5:58 pm 33

    okay….lemme put it this way.
    I installed windows xp sp2, then later upgraded to sp3.
    I did this by editing the drivers in the image and then inslling that on to the external hdd of western digital that i have.
    everything went smooth through the installation but once it tries to come up in normal mode, the pagefile doesnt get created.
    I know that USB doesnt support the pagefile.sys on external hdd, but that is something that i am trying to crack.
    As part of my research, there is no internal hdd.

    Lemme know if anyone comes up with anything.

    You can find me at sandeepcheema1983
    @hotmail.com

34. Kurisu February 28th, 2008 at 11:19 pm 34

    >< It’s not working i keep getting a format request after using the mkbt to place the .bin on to the usb drive… please help me =(

35. gajimicu March 6th, 2008 at 8:25 am 35

    Same here, format request, don’t know what to do since i followed all the steps…

36. Viner March 13th, 2008 at 5:43 pm 36

    Я просто охуеваю от перевода. На таком русском языке даже в притонах Гонконга не говорят…

37. atul March 17th, 2008 at 2:17 pm 37

    how to installed win xp /2000 suporat usb drivers.

38. jyo April 12th, 2008 at 7:35 pm 38

    that was gr8 but now i want to know that what is the name of the xp service pack 2 installation file and where is it located in the xp cd and how can i copy it to other drive so that it works…

39. gurpreet April 15th, 2008 at 1:49 am 39

    after creating a image i got a message “mkbt is not recognized as internal and external command”

    please any one help me

40. Bart May 4th, 2008 at 2:23 am 40

    Is there already a sollution for this problem?
    “>< It’s not working i keep getting a format request after using the mkbt to place the .bin on to the usb drive… please help me =(”

    I have the same problem. Slipstreamed raid drivers in the xp installation with sp2 in it, made an iso from it with nlite and after that I try to make a bin file with bbie and put it on the flash drive with mkbt.
    I’m using win xp x64’s cmd to execute the mkbt and bbie, also tried a xp 32 bit.
    Tried putting the bbie files and mkbt files on the flash drive and tried with those files on my hardrive. In subdirectories and on the root of my c:.
    Nothing of this all works.
    My flash drive is bootable, tested that with the usb test.
    I just want a win xp x64 cd with sp2 slisptreamed in it and my raid drivers, this should be able to work right?

41. bary May 27th, 2008 at 2:19 am 41

    Hi.
    My pendrive is named G:. The filesystem is FAT32.

    This is what I get from the mkbt -x ….

    Reading source boot sector from \”image1.bin\”
    Checking Boot sector information
    Reading target boot sector from \”\\\\.\\G:\”
    Warning different filesystem ID
    Writing boot sector back to \”\\\\.\\G:\”

    I configured first boot device as USB-ZIP. After that, I tried to boot up the USB, but nothing happened, just Windows Xp started. I also tried pressing F8 and choosing USB_ZIP, but I got the same.

    Any idea??

42. PistonHonda May 30th, 2008 at 1:55 am 42

    when i try to extract from an ISO and then make my jump drive bootable with mkbt.

    i get “Drive E: not supported, only floppy drives are supported”

    ???

43. PRADEEP July 25th, 2008 at 11:31 am 43

    I WANT TO MAKE MY PASSWORD PROTECTED PEN DRIVE.MEANS AFTER ATTACHED THE PEN DRIVE WITH PC ITS SHOWS PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD QUICKLY.PLEASE HELP ME SEND ANY INFORAMTION ON Y EAMIL ADDRESS PRADEEPSONI2020@GMAIL.COM

44. Aldi August 16th, 2008 at 7:10 am 44

    Can I use these step to make my external HDD bootable?
    I mean, i want my external HDD is bootable, how to do it?

    Thank you Raymond

45. LJ October 26th, 2008 at 9:00 pm 45

    Useful – thanks.

    Older BIOS cannot boot from USB but only from floppy diskette.

    Is there a way of making a floppy diskette which boots from floppy drive and then continues to boot from USB?

46. hassan abass December 5th, 2008 at 11:33 pm 46

    is there any utility that i can use to boot from usb harddisk or usb keydrive
    and from there i chose an iso file which represent a bootable cd or live cd.

    this is very good utility if it work in bootable dos and windows at same time.

    regards
    hassan abass

47. Frank December 30th, 2008 at 1:00 pm 47

    Hi , does it works with NTFS files too ?

48. Buff January 2nd, 2009 at 5:32 am 48

    mkbt doens’t work say format needed. I think it corrupted the usb and no one in here ever got it to work in the first place…….

49. DONNY51972 January 11th, 2009 at 10:53 pm 49

    HERE IS A BETTER PROGRAM QUICK AND EASY

    http://www.datafilehost.com/download-288440e0.html

50. Manoj Sharma January 22nd, 2009 at 1:41 pm 50

    While Use BBIE to extract boot image from ISO with the command “bbie filename.iso“. As per command given by by (c:\bbie d: ) D: drive is my CD\DVD drive but it is automatically it take floppy drive. i have tried with Bootable CD as well as ISO image both have same problem. Please see the below error code

    1:\mode “Floppy Drive emulation 1.44 MV”. Sector is 40 Writing 720 Block to “image.bin”

    While command as suggested mkbt -x image.bin j:
    ( J: is my Pen drive)received same error as below mentioned.

    Exper mode (-X)
    Opening “Image.bin (fir read) falled Tried 5 tunes)
    Error code 0×2. The system connot find the file specified

51. Nocty February 2nd, 2009 at 4:39 am 51

    I have the same question that was posted a few times before – can I remove that boot sector from my usb without reformatting and erasing all the info on it?

52. losma1 February 3rd, 2009 at 11:29 am 52

    All of \”copy CD/DVD boot image to USB flash drive\” don\’t works fine, only get a mesange \”usb drive not formatted\”

53. sam February 5th, 2009 at 6:43 am 53

    thanks mate. helped me alot.
    cheers.

54. norlyn February 14th, 2009 at 10:04 am 54

    raymond,how to make a bootable USB flash drive?

55. ivaylo February 25th, 2009 at 7:15 am 55

    same errors try another prog

56. adidoro March 30th, 2009 at 7:08 am 56

    How about to install and boot full windows XP from USB STICK or USB HDD?
    I have made one, and works fine, just the STICK version is a little slowly, but hey, what to espect from a stick?
    Sorry for the moment work on english version of the page, check back sun, regards.

57. Rex (Philippines) May 5th, 2009 at 10:24 am 57

    i use kingston flash Drive, When i start to boot on my PC it says: “Boot Failure” what will i do.

58. Abdul Haseeb May 12th, 2009 at 4:58 am 58

    I downloaded bbbi.exe But when i double click it appears and then closes in matter of second i try running cmd from run but its running pls help me how to get this solve as both of those softwares are not running

59. Swalem May 24th, 2009 at 7:04 am 59

    thanks to much and the information is so helpful and full so what i say?
    thanks again and i wish you good luck and to read more article from you and to be helpful
    thanks

60. luis franco June 26th, 2009 at 7:03 am 60

    estoy intentando bootear una iso desde mi pendrive pero cada ves q hago lo de la pregunta dos dice q mi pendrive pierde formato….no se q hacer….ayuda…!!!!

61. John August 19th, 2009 at 3:32 am 61

    Thanks for a ver good page!

62. franklin September 22nd, 2009 at 5:46 am 62

    when im running bbie in cmd it comes as bbie is not recognised as internal or external comand,opareble program or batch file…can u help me wat to do sir

63. franklin September 22nd, 2009 at 5:52 am 63

    wen i run bbie in cmd it displays as bbie is not recognised as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file……co doould u help me sir wat

64. mlz October 27th, 2009 at 8:18 am 64

    same problem as the ppl above me…i downloaded BBIE but when i double click it, it quickly flashes and disappears….when i try typing that in from a regular command prompt i get a message saying it is not recognized as an internal blah blah etc…. any help here?

65. Alexander November 6th, 2009 at 4:22 am 65

    i used mkbt with my pendrive and it killed my usb. so windows says that my pendrive has´nt format at all. can you help me?.