I used USB Multiboot 10 to prepare my 40 GB Ext. USB Hard Drive for installing Windows XP SP3 on my Acer Laptop (currently running Win Vista).

The entire process of prepping up the USB went effortlessly. When I booted from USB into Win XP installation (in text mode), I was presented with the usual Partition Selection screen, where we can modify/select partitions for XP install.

It is here that the problem arises. In the list of partitions, I only see my USB HD listed as one partition and labelled as C drive. I am not seeing any of the Lapy's exisitng Hard Drives, thus defeating the very purpose of installation.

Any suggestions/help ?

Most likely your XP Setup Source is missing MassStorage Drivers needed to see your laptop Harddisk.

http://www.msfn.org/board/install-XP-USB-t111406.html

Supports the use of BTS DriverPacks located in OEM Folder on USB-Drive

http://driverpacks.net/DriverPacks/

For installing XP on modern systems with SATA Drives it is needed to use DPsBase.exe

for Integrating in your XPSOURCE BTS DriverPack Massstorage with TXT Mode Enabled.

In that case a lot of Extra RAID SCSI and SATA Drivers (about 120 extra) are Integrated and will appear in the

XP Setup BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT on USB-Drive and can prevent a lot of XP Installation Boot Problems

Edited June 27, 200917 yr by wimb