[Rizvi]

I need to find a way to install Windows XP from my USB HDD (not Flash Disk). I have found a lot of stuff on how to install from USB thumb drives and even tried it and it works! But my question is weather the same is possible using a generic USB HDD?

Need Help.

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Why do you need to install XP from a USB hard drive anyway?
It can be done but it's a lot more effort and it's far quicker to just make a USB pen stick bootable as it's generic.

[Neil Jones]

Why do you need to install XP from a USB hard drive anyway?
It can be done but it's a lot more effort and it's far quicker to just make a USB pen stick bootable as it's generic.

[rshaffer61]

Why not use the XP installation cd?
Where did the XP on the USB drive come from?
Do you have a Registration number?
Is this a name brand system?

[Rizvi]

I am a tech support guy with quite a large IT setup. We do not have single brand of PCs in our setup This started from me slipstreaming all possible drivers that we usually need into the XP installation and preparing a USB thumbdrive for installation. This works like a charm.
However there are a number of other tools that need to be installed in almost every PC that I reinstall windows on (Office Enterprise, Visual Studio 2008 with MSDN Subscription, MS Office Project, SQL Server Developer etc). Our IT security policy prohibits me from putting installation media on networked location. So this means that most part of the day I am running around with 4 or 5 different installation medias.
So now my question; if it is possible to make XP installation media on a 500GB usb Harddisk then i can also put installations for the other softwares on it and just do it all from one disk.

Now answers to your questions:

Why not use the XP installation cd? - most of the PCs don't have optical drives
Where did the XP on the USB drive come from? - detailed description provided above; just to make my life easier. (I already have a success with installing XP from USB thumbdrive.
Do you have a Registration number? - Yes, my organization is MS Gold partner
Is this a name brand system? - No