How do I make USB drive bootable from within XP? Which program can I use?

My BIOS supports booting from a USB device and I have an external USB
2.5" drive but my computer is running XP Pro. I do have bootable
Win98SE floppy with all the necessary files but the USB drive is not
available without a DOS driver so I am unable to SYS the drive or
Format /S from the DOS prompt. Is there a way to make the drive
bootable while using WinXP Pro? Drive Image...Partition
programs....using WinImage with a bootable Image file......?
What would be my best option?

TIA
Arawak

 

Can I ask why you need a bootable drive from WITHIN Windows? the usual
thing is to use a bootable drive from OUTSIDE windows, ie when
installing or re-installing the OS, which is a BIOS function.

 

Let's see if I can explain myself better....I want another option to
access my system when the inevitable happens, virus attack, blue
screen, whatever. My Dell notebook does not have a built-in floppy
drive and when I am on the road I don't always carry the big bulky
external floppy drive with me. I want to be able to bootup my computer
using the very small USB 2.0 enclosure containing a 2.5" laptop hard
drive which currently has no operating system. I simply want to put
the operating system on the drive. DELL tech support told me if I can
make the drive bootable my Latitude D400 will boot from it as long I
make that an option during the boot process from within the BIOS,
which i have done but that's the extent of the assistance they can
provide.

 

Can you get an adapter and drop the 2.5" in a PC then prep it ?


Regards

 

Well, I found a USB DOS driver after hunting via google and after a
few bad starts was able to get the drive recognized in DOS. I then
FDISK'd it to create a partition (FAT). When I re-booted the system
into Win98, I was then allowed to Format it with the /S switch and now
all is fine.
I had hoped to find a program similar to WinImage which allows your to
write a bootable image to a diskette but so far no luck.

 

You aint doing so good there ardvark..

 

Make a bootable CD instead, like the Windows Disk. Or even get Ghost and
put an image of your install compressed on a CD.

Keep you file system FAT32 (partitioning may be necessary).

Make a small FAT32 partition with windows setup on it, or a second OS, or
get a Knoppix CD to use (entire operating system on a CD).

If your laptop HD is toast on the road, you are screwed anyway. Only thing
you need to worry about is backup of your data files and a working OS. You
can do that with a little creative manipulation of the stuff you already
have.

 

You win!

 

Why not use the Windows XP CD? That's bootable.

 

What DOS driver did you use??

Would you please post the link, where you found it??

Willard