Convert .iso to img?

A

Azazel90x

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Hi, im using HP's drive key boot utility to make a flash drive act like a bootable floppy drive, only problem is the file is an .iso and hp boot utility only accepts .img. How can i convert this? Poweriso cant, i tried unless im missing something?

Help?
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
Hi, im using HP's drive key boot utility to make a flash drive act like a bootable floppy drive, only problem is the file is an .iso and hp boot utility only accepts .img. How can i convert this? Poweriso cant, i tried unless im missing something?

Help?
Click to expand...

Don't have it installed on this machine, but if you can mount it as a drive, ImgBurn could re-burn it to a new format (I think it supports .img)
 
You can't just convert a .iso file into a .img file and expect it to work, that won't happen. CD/DVD boot sectors won't work on USB sticks - they use totally different ways of "booting" from those types of media.

Believe me, I've been looking for a utility that could take any old bootable ISO image and put it on a USB stick for 5 years or so now and still no one has created such a thing because it can't be done without serious modifications to the ISO image to convert it over to the type of boot sector USB sticks use.

If it were possible, people would be running around with USB sticks for installing Windows XP off, stick it in and boot the machine and run with it, but that hasn't happened because it doesn't work like that.

Now, there are situations where this can actually be done. BartPE discs use a different type of boot sector, and as such there's a utility that can take any BartPE disc and convert it easily to a bootable USB stick, it's called PE2USB and I've used it with great success in the past. I've got a custom UBCD4Win that I've compiled over the last year with specific utilities that I use for doing AV/spyware/malware cleanup tasks on client machines, and I have that not only on CD but I then transferred it to make a bootable USB stick version too.

The benefit to the USB stick version is that I can easily modify it and add the latest AV patches and signatures to it without requiring me to reburn the CD - which is a CDRW actually, but it's more complicated to reburn that because I have to recompile the entire UBCD4Win. Guess I need a tool that does USB2PE. :)

Anyway... in general, you can't just take any old bootable ISO of some kind and automagically transfer it to a bootable USB stick, this stuff just doesn't work that way.

I could be wrong, but so far in over 5 years of looking, I've never found any tool that could convert any bootable ISO directly to a bootable USB stick. If someone knows of such a thing - and read this post again to get it clarified as to why if necessary - I'd sure as hell like to see it.
 
so i cant install windows xp with a jump drive? thats stupid >< oh well thanks for the help anyway
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
so i cant install windows xp with a jump drive? thats stupid >< oh well thanks for the help anyway
Click to expand...

Nope, and that's precisely why I hopped on this thread as I did. I knew precisely what you were probably going to be intending to do with that idea, and believe me, I've been looking for that method since USB sticks in 1GB sizes first came out because those were the first capable of holding the contents of a proper XP installation CD (roughly 630MB for SP2, about 680MB for SP3). :)

Sorry it's not happening, but if you do happen upon an actual working solution to convert any standard bootable ISO to a bootable USB stick, let me know will ya, and I'll do the same if I get any info that's useful myself.
 
If you have a bootable ISO (lets say; an image of a windowsxp cd) and a u3 supporting flash drive; you can use Kingstons Universal Customizer to load it onto a flash drive and boot from it.
I have two seperate flash drives with XP install discs loaded on them. So just like Joe Average said; I plug it in; boot to USB and install xp home or pro (depending what I need at work) to do it from.
As long as your iso is actually bootable; and your flash drive supports u3 (it doesn't need the actual u3 software on it; just needs to support it) the kingston universal customizer software takes care of it. You place your iso into the Bin folder, rename it to U3CUSTOM.iso and it loads it for you.
If you have any questions lemme know; I'll try to remember to check back here

Kingston's Universal Customizer Download
 
Kontu said:
If you have a bootable ISO (lets say; an image of a windowsxp cd) and a u3 supporting flash drive; you can use Kingstons Universal Customizer to load it onto a flash drive and boot from it.
I have two seperate flash drives with XP install discs loaded on them. So just like Joe Average said; I plug it in; boot to USB and install xp home or pro (depending what I need at work) to do it from.
As long as your iso is actually bootable; and your flash drive supports u3 (it doesn't need the actual u3 software on it; just needs to support it) the kingston universal customizer software takes care of it. You place your iso into the Bin folder, rename it to U3CUSTOM.iso and it loads it for you.
If you have any questions lemme know; I'll try to remember to check back here

Kingston's Universal Customizer Download
Click to expand...

This didn't work for me. In fact, it created a partition on my disk that now thinks it is a CD-ROM, and I can't get rid of it. It has a 44byte .cda that won't delete/play/etc. I can't rerun the customizer as it thinks I have 2 U3 devices installed. If I "Eject" either of them, it says I have none installed. Also, the CDROM partition is of a UDF format, and it is only 2MB. :confused:
 
Eragon Dragonslayer said:
so i cant install windows xp with a jump drive? thats stupid >< oh well thanks for the help anyway
Click to expand...
Sure you can...just not the way you are trying. You need to make it DOS bootable, and then you copy the contents of the i386 directory to the flash drive. Once you boot, you run the DOS setup file, and XP's setup will start. Don't expect it to be fast, though.
 
Running a u3 wiper should fix that Kil4Thril. However; did you place your ISO into the /bin folder and replace the existing U3CUSTOM.ISO file that was in there? Because that's a roughly 2meg file and that's what would happen if you didn't. I've used this process with knoppix, backtrack 3, an Ubuntu live CD, BartPE, Norton Ghost, and a few other bootable utilities I've needed. Granted its only one program per flash drive (at the moment; i'm working on resolving that) but its still nice.
We've now actually started selling the XP installing flash drives to customers.

There is one thing I forgot to mention when doing an XP install flash drive. You have to edit some of the USB files in the i386 directory. If you don't; after it copies system files and reboots your system it drops the flash drive and fails installing xp heh
I wish I could find the instructions for the USB files again; but I don't have the time right now.
 
Installing XP from a USB stick is rather easy, just google it. That's how I installed XP Pro on my AAO. Installing Vista from a USB stick is even easier.
 
Kontu said:
Running a u3 wiper should fix that Kil4Thril. However; did you place your ISO into the /bin folder and replace the existing U3CUSTOM.ISO file that was in there? Because that's a roughly 2meg file and that's what would happen if you didn't. I've used this process with knoppix, backtrack 3, an Ubuntu live CD, BartPE, Norton Ghost, and a few other bootable utilities I've needed. Granted its only one program per flash drive (at the moment; i'm working on resolving that) but its still nice.
We've now actually started selling the XP installing flash drives to customers.

There is one thing I forgot to mention when doing an XP install flash drive. You have to edit some of the USB files in the i386 directory. If you don't; after it copies system files and reboots your system it drops the flash drive and fails installing xp heh
I wish I could find the instructions for the USB files again; but I don't have the time right now.
Click to expand...

Yes, I didn't realize the ISO needed to be changed BEFORE running the program, so I had it all goofy. While the actual U3 software was gone, the partitioning had been returned. The U3 uninstaller did fix it. I'll create a new ISO and try again later tonight.
 
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