Ok im running the BartPE installer script.Everything went smooth up till this point I keep getting this error and after many attempts I can not get rid of it.

PEINST: Installing ntdetect to H: (H: is my USB thumbdrive)
The system can not find the file specified.

PEINST: Aborted...
Press any key to continue (NO tring to find the "any key" is not my issue..lol)

Anyway I have looked in the directory where the BartPE files are (the directory I specified) and sure enough there isnt a ntdetect file there though there is in the i386 folder but even copying it into the root of the BartPE folder and running the script again didnt work.
Well ill stop rambling now.Any ideas how I can fix this so I can finaly get XP onto my thumb drive?

Thanx alot for any help.

NOTE: I was fallowing toms guide to do this.I have even gone over to make sure of everything and I have done everything correct to his guide and as I said before all was well and smooth just up to this point.

So you're obviously trying to put the UBCD4Win on your USB drive, correct? Well, I'm not sure exactly how you are going about it, but did you try this?: http://www.ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=4564

Well ok so far so good I have used PeToUSB to get all the files needed onto my USB (kingston DataTraveler) Now one thing I am wondering is how can i use it for XP and storage?see i just had the kingston software exe (LaunchU3.exe) along with folders full of personal stuff ontot he drive.I tried to boot up the XP after setting up my BIOS and all i got was the "boot failure" error and asking to put in correct media i believe it said.Would the problom be that exe of my folders?I will delete everything off of it and just try with the XP files and see what happens but IF I get the same error how do I go about fixing it?

Thanx for all the help.

Langa Letter: XP On Your Thumb Drive

Fred Langa offers a step-by-step and illustrated guide on how to boot XP from an ordinary USB drive.

well thanx again for the help....well the good news is its booting up and as we all know where there is good news there lays a lil bad.The bad news is that when i get to the XP screen with the blue bar scrolling across the screen as soon as that screen dissapears i get the dreaded BSOD.So what would cause this how do I fix it...just do it all over again?

Hard to say since we don't know exactly what you did or how you built the project etc...

To start with provide...

UBCD4Win version you used
BartPE version you used
Driver packs version if any
What version of Windows
Is this a DELL or other system OEM disk

What type of video card and hard drive controllers does your computer have?
What system is it?

What were the exact steps you took to build the project... and don't say just that you followed the instructions because people often miss a step.. if you actually list what you did, we may notice an oversite.

Well if UBCD4Win is the same as PeToUSB I used version 3.0.0.7 what does UBCD4Win stand for anyway?lol
PEBuilder: 3.1.10a
No driver packs
Windows XP Pro
Non OEM ($3000 sweet machine I built )

Video: ATI card (dont remeber the series but it was a $300 card about 2 years ago)

Steps: well it was a combination of "toms" guid along with the guide recomended to me in this post.Ill try to list them as close to what i did.

Format using HP USB formattin tool (toms guide)

Download SP2 (toms guide)

Updated XP files with SP2 (toms guide)

unpacked ramdisk.sy_ so that it was ramdisk.sys (unpacked it with in the folder from which I had it in then deleted the.sy_ verson) (informationweek guide)

used PEBuilder to build the XP files (informationweek guide)

Used petousb to prepair my USB thumbdrive (informationweek guide)

hope that helps but those are the steps i fallowed and here is the link to the toms guide i fallowed in the begining
Toms Guide

Hope its not to vauge im kind of in a hurry have an appointment at a college so I will get back ASAP thanks again for the patiants and your help.

I'll have to let others help with the USB issues from here but I can add some more info that you have likely already read but it can't hurt. Until someone with a bit more experience using USB comes along to help... I can also suggest a test that you can try to see if your PEBuilder setup is correct also so you can see if its your USB setup or the PEBuilder setup that needs some tweaking.

Trying to boot a USB device ( at this point in time anyway ) is always tricky business... there are many things as I'm sure you've seen that can affect it working or not... first the many different USB devices and how they work, then the systems itself and the different USB boot options that it may or may not have such as USB floppy boot vs USB hard drive style boot... your type of USB device will have a preference here also.. and finally the util that is used such as petousb that you used can also make a difference ( there are several different ones available. So you can imagine that getting the correct combination for your system can be tricky sometimes with just those different combinations.

Now add to that what drivers are needed for your specific hardware and what versions of PEbuilder etc.

To help find out if your trouble is somewhere with your PEBuilder setup... have it create an ISO file if you didn't already... burn that ISO file using your CD software as an image to a CDR or CDRW disk and try to boot from it... if it boots fine without the BSOD... then the trouble is in the method you used to create the USB boot from... if it also gives a BSOD, then the issue is withing the build itself and will need addressed before trying to make another USB boot setup.

As to the question about UBCD4Win... that is the main forum that you are on now... we also provide support for BartPE as well. UBCD4Win stands for Ultimate Boot CD for Windows and is a modified version of BartPE that provides many more utils than the vanilla version of BartPE provides. If you are interested in learning more about it just go to http://www.ubcd4win.com

Haha, oh man... if I don't laugh I'll cry...

well thank you very much for the help rdsok.I will try that and see what happens and see what i fure out.I will check into the UBCD4Win also maybe it could help me in some way.