Making bootable USB drives.

I want to make USB boot drives in both Windows and Ubuntu versions. What is the best way? I want the full OS not just rescue drives. I just picked up a couple 8gig thumb drives. I also have older hard drives I can put in USB enclosures. Can I just install to the USB drive like it was any hard drive on the system? Or image my current Windows install to the USB drive. The guides I have looked at on line are all circa 2005 and talk about all the tricks you need to go through to get Windows to install to a 256meg thumb drive.

Course the BIOS must support it.... It'll be slower then heck... And you can't use it on different computers unless the hardware is identical...

But if you google it - it can be found.

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Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

Course the BIOS must support it.... It'll be slower then heck... And you can't use it on different computers unless the hardware is identical...

But if you google it - it can be found.

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I just want to have a safe boot option with the right tools installed in case of some significant infection so speed is not a huge consideration.

WinUSB is a tutorial which allows the user to run a complete Windows XP version on an USB device/stick.

http://www.winusb.de/index_en.html

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Originally Posted by drdoom

I just want to have a safe boot option with the right tools installed in case of some significant infection so speed is not a huge consideration.

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For that function I have a small partition with a striped OS and all the diagnostic/repair tools installed. It can be easily selected at boot time and will run much faster than from any external device.

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Originally Posted by ua549

For that function I have a small partition with a striped OS and all the diagnostic/repair tools installed. It can be easily selected at boot time and will run much faster than from any external device.

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I want something portable. I already have separate boot hard drives with a clean install of Windows and an install of Ubuntu.

You do realize that the flash drive OS will only work on a system with the same parts as the system used to set up the OS on the flash drive. A different system will require its own set of drivers and dll software components. Those are configured in the registry during the installation.

I am not really concerned about it. At 7.99 for 8 gig thumb drives I can make custom boot drives for all the computer I will likely have to clean. I know the usual suspects.