Booting XP from a USB key?

[bobdole369]

I'm doing the ultimate boot CD from a USB key, anyone gone so far as to put xp and have a disk free workstation? Any links or help? I'd like to be able to R&D this avenue as we put computers aboard ships (actually mega and super yachts) and marine life is pretty hostile to spinning disks, yet SSD's aren't quite affordable or proven.

Our software rarely writes to disk and we have enough memory to minimize paging, so an entire OS/software on a USB key is not out of the question.

I know about the IDE -> CF devices and I've actually used a few of them (fusion research media clients).


Any pointers, caveats, places to look?

 

[yinan]

If they are aboard mega yachts I think they can aford $1000 for an SSD. But hey thats just me...

 

[Nothinman]

I don't think you'll be able to get regular XP to do that, you'll need a copy of XP embedded or WinPE. And you'll probably have to use the former to be legal.

 

[bobdole369]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I don't think you'll be able to get regular XP to do that, you'll need a copy of XP embedded or WinPE. And you'll probably have to use the former to be legal.

Exactly the type of knowledge I'm looking for.

Yes, they can afford an SSD, but we still need to keep costs down.

 

[lxskllr]

See if this thread helps you any. It's from an EeePC users forum, but your goals are the same :^)