Okay, what did I do wrong now?

Background: I was trying to copy files from a Windows 2000 Professional disk image onto a flash drive via a program called WinSetupFromUSB while following this tutorial: A Simple Way to Install Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 From a USB Drive » TechUserFriendly.com

I'm wanting to install Windows 2000 onto an old laptop I have with this method because I don't have any blank CDs to burn the disk image on to.

Long story short, while using the program to format the flash drive, I messed up something and now I have this problem:


I don't know what I did wrong, but my flash drive ended up having two different lettered drives on it. I deleted the normal one, but the second one doesn't seem to exist, at least on disk management, but appears on file explorer and doesn't seem to ever want to be formatted. And rebooting the system all that ever did was change the drive size from 31.5 KB or something like that to unknown capacity​.

Does anybody have a clue?

Was that a 2GB usb flash drive? Your Disk Manager thinks it is (1.88GB unallocated). To completely clean all partitions from the flash drive use Diskpart from a Command Prompt (Admin). Use the Diskpart commands...

LIST DISK
(note the disk number of the usb and use it in place of # in the following command)
SELECT DISK #
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

After that it will have a single partition occupying the whole of the available space. You can format it with Diskpart if you like, or just exit Diskpart and format the usb any way you want, Disk Manager or File Explorer will do.

Bree said:

Was that a 2GB usb flash drive? Your Disk Manager thinks it is (1.88GB unallocated). To completely clean all partitions from the flash drive use Diskpart from a Command Prompt (Admin). Use the Diskpart commands...

LIST DISK
(note the disk number of the usb and use it in place of # in the following command)
SELECT DISK #
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY

After that it will have a single partition occupying the whole of the available space. You can format it with Diskpart if you like, or just exit Diskpart and format the usb any way you want, Disk Manager or File Explorer will do.

Thanks for your suggestion. Although I'm still having problems trying to get this flash drive prepared. Likely have to make another post describing it somewhere more appropriate or follow another tutorial with a slightly different description.

In order to make a Windows 7 flash drive from a Windows 7 DVD, all you have to do is prepare the flash drive as follows:

diskpart
list disk
select disk # <-replace # with the actual number for the USB flash drive
clean
create par pri
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
exit
exit

Your flash drive should now appear in Explorer with a drive letter. Copy all the files and folders from the Windows 7 DVD to the flash drive. That's it.

NavyLCDR said:

In order to make a Windows 7 flash drive from a Windows 7 DVD, all you have to do is prepare the flash drive as follows:

diskpart
list disk
select disk # <-replace # with the actual number for the USB flash drive
clean
create par pri
format fs=fat32 quick
active
assign
exit
exit

Your flash drive should now appear in Explorer with a drive letter. Copy all the files and folders from the Windows 7 DVD to the flash drive. That's it.

Okay, but I said I was making a flash drive to install Windows 2000 on my laptop, not 7.

ACMDogfight1997 said:

Okay, but I said I was making a flash drive to install Windows 2000 on my laptop, not 7.

Oh....duh, my mistake. Yes, for that I think, not sure, you probably do need a third party program to create the flash drive. Sorry!

Here's a couple alternatives:
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...h-windows-2000
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

NavyLCDR said:

In order to make a Windows 7 flash drive from a Windows 7 DVD, all you have to do is prepare the flash drive as follows... Your flash drive should now appear in Explorer with a drive letter. Copy all the files and folders from the Windows 7 DVD to the flash drive. That's it.

Unfortunately the OP said us that....

ACMDogfight1997 said:

...I was trying to copy files from a Windows 2000 Professional disk image onto a flash drive...

...and I can confirm (having just dug out an old Windows 2000 Pro CD to test this) that the CD wasn't bootable, you were intended to boot from a floppy to use it. Although the CD contains a command line Makeboot.exe to make the boot floppys, that's hardly practical these days

I'm looking into possible workarounds, back later if I find one.....

Bree said:

Unfortunately the OP said us that....


...and I can confirm (having just dug out an old Windows 2000 Pro CD to test this) that the CD wasn't bootable, you were intended to boot from a floppy to use it. Although the CD contains a command line Makeboot.exe to make the boot floppys, that's hardly practical these days

I'm looking into possible workarounds, back later if I find one.....

Yep:

ACMDogfight1997 said:

Okay, but I said I was making a flash drive to install Windows 2000 on my laptop, not 7.

Oh....duh, my mistake. Yes, for that I think, not sure, you probably do need a third party program to create the flash drive. Sorry!

Here's a couple alternatives:
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...h-windows-2000
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way

Bree said:

Unfortunately the OP said us that....


...and I can confirm (having just dug out an old Windows 2000 Pro CD to test this) that the CD wasn't bootable, you were intended to boot from a floppy to use it. Although the CD contains a command line Makeboot.exe to make the boot floppys, that's hardly practical these days

I'm looking into possible workarounds, back later if I find one.....

Yep:

ACMDogfight1997 said:

Okay, but I said I was making a flash drive to install Windows 2000 on my laptop, not 7.

Oh....duh, my mistake. Yes, for that I think, not sure, you probably do need a third party program to create the flash drive. Sorry!

Here's a couple alternatives:
https://www.techwalla.com/articles/h...h-windows-2000
Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way