How do you make a usb drive bootable?

[Blue Knight]

I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this. What I want to do is take a CD bootable image (such as my norton ghost disc), and instead, put it on a USB harddrive.

All the guides I've found give these steps:

1) Create/Make the partition and mark it as Active
2) Format it using FAT and make sure to check any "make it bootable" boxes
3) Copy all of the files from the Norton Disc onto this new partition

However, when I do this, and I try to boot from the USB drive, all I get is "Boot Failure" (trying to boot to both a dell laptop and desktop). I know this can be done as I've inherited a USB hard drive that can do this, but I'm trying to make an updated version on a 2nd drive.

Am I missing a step here? I'm currently working in winXP still.

 

[Rowens]

I've had decent luck with YUMI from http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/; I've used it with various Linux and *BSD .iso files and had good luck, and with WinXP - Win7 with mixed results. I'm not sure if Norton would work, but it's worth a look at least.

 

[cre3d]

Not sure if windows xp has the diskpart utility but what I normally do which works for all my usb sticks that I use to install O/S's with is the following:

diskpart
list disk
select disk x (usb)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
exit

Then copy the contents of whatever bootable disc you're trying to make a usb stick of and give it a spin.

 

[treadstone]

I'm not familiar with Norton Ghost, but if you happen to have the data you want to put onto a USB drive or DVD in an ISO format, Microsoft has this nifty little tool called 'Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool' which will take care of all of this for you. It's a simple 4 step process:

1. You select the ISO image you want to transfer onto a USB or DVD
2. You select either a USB device or a DVD drive
3. The program initializes and/or formats and makes the USB device or DVD bootable
4. It copies the ISO image to the device/disc

Not sure if it will work for USB hard disk drives, but it might be worth a try.
Hope this helps.

 

[scaarbelly]

This HP tool makes a usb drive bootable.

 

[k1pp3r]

The HP tool works very well

 

[vr.]

The tool unetbootin can create a bootable USB stick from an ISO image.

Be sure the BIOS supports USB booting and to set USB as the first bootable device.

Some BIOS have options on how the USB device is perceived (hdd vs floppy). Some USB devices don't like being set to "Auto".

I've also experienced that USB Hi-speed or Full-speed in the BIOS can play a factor on some systems not picking up a USB device as bootable.