Yes, how do you get Windows XP installed on a PC when its optical drives are all dead and the SCSI ones aren't being recognised in DOS. That's the kind of PC someone dropped at my house to get "fixed" and they didn't know USB CD-ROM drives don't work in DOS without the right configuration...

No, it wasn't an Alienware but man, these things cost too much.

Well, I don't know if knowing how to use Linux would have helped but, I was stumped about how to deploy Windows from a CD. Even though the AmiBIOS had support for USB boot devices, it wouldn't boot off my 1GB flash drive for some reason. Would have been handy because I had a working copy of Win XP on it.

Win XP PE. All you need is a 256MB flash drive.

After a few hours of pondering, I finally found out how to get USB drives working with DOS from this site using a startup floppy disk. The scan takes over a minute or so but, in the end my flash drive was detected in DOS and I could install Win XP from that thankfully.

OK, I could have just taken out the HD and put into my PC to get Windows installed but, that was too much of a hassle :P

Related Links:
• Create a Windows Startup Disk with USB Support.
• Win XP PE on a Flash Drive
• Tom's Hardware - "Windows in Your Pocket"