Some time ago, I conducted a series of experiments and summaries on USB flash drive booting and got relatively satisfactory results - using a combination of a USB flash drive and a card reader + SD card to completely replace the 3.5-inch floppy drive.
But recently, a new problem was discovered - speed. After all, both USB flash drives and SD cards have much slower data transfer speeds than disks, so it is necessary to make some improvements.
I think the slow speed should be due to two aspects. One is determined by the physical characteristics of the SD card and USB flash drive itself, and there is nothing we can do about it; the second is due to the driver method. After all, in the DOS environment, most USB devices work in USB 1.1 mode. Therefore, if we can make them work in USB 2.0 mode, I think the speed should be improved.
Of course, since I have done a more detailed horizontal test on the transmission rates of hard drives, SD cards, and USB flash drives in the XP environment (once all is completed, I will post the test results), so I am skeptical about how much actual effect this improvement can bring.
Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to let everyone discuss together to solve the following problem - if there is no CD and cannot open the case (many laptops and original computers are like this) to install the system through a USB disk (including physical disks and electronic disks)?
Plan 1: Use DOS + a mobile hard drive working in USB 1.1 mode to first copy the XP installation files to the target computer, and then install the XP system under DOS.
Plan 2: Similar to Plan 1, but use a "high-speed" card reader working in USB 2.0 mode + a high-speed SD card. However, it is quite difficult to use USB 2.0 devices in the DOS environment (those USBASPI, UI1000DD, USBMASS, DUSE and other driver programs recommended in this forum have all been tried and none have been successful), and the speed of the electronic disk itself is lower than that of the physical disk, so I am not very interested in this plan.
Plan 3: Use the popular USB flash drive version of Lao Maotao PE to boot WINPE first, and then copy files or directly install the XP system in this environment. Since the hardware performance can be fully utilized in the PE environment, I currently tend to this plan. Of course, it is relatively troublesome to run the PE system on USB flash drives and mobile hard drives at present, so further research and analysis are still needed.
I really want to know everyone's opinions on this problem. I wonder how you usually handle such problems?
But recently, a new problem was discovered - speed. After all, both USB flash drives and SD cards have much slower data transfer speeds than disks, so it is necessary to make some improvements.
I think the slow speed should be due to two aspects. One is determined by the physical characteristics of the SD card and USB flash drive itself, and there is nothing we can do about it; the second is due to the driver method. After all, in the DOS environment, most USB devices work in USB 1.1 mode. Therefore, if we can make them work in USB 2.0 mode, I think the speed should be improved.
Of course, since I have done a more detailed horizontal test on the transmission rates of hard drives, SD cards, and USB flash drives in the XP environment (once all is completed, I will post the test results), so I am skeptical about how much actual effect this improvement can bring.
Therefore, I want to take this opportunity to let everyone discuss together to solve the following problem - if there is no CD and cannot open the case (many laptops and original computers are like this) to install the system through a USB disk (including physical disks and electronic disks)?
Plan 1: Use DOS + a mobile hard drive working in USB 1.1 mode to first copy the XP installation files to the target computer, and then install the XP system under DOS.
Plan 2: Similar to Plan 1, but use a "high-speed" card reader working in USB 2.0 mode + a high-speed SD card. However, it is quite difficult to use USB 2.0 devices in the DOS environment (those USBASPI, UI1000DD, USBMASS, DUSE and other driver programs recommended in this forum have all been tried and none have been successful), and the speed of the electronic disk itself is lower than that of the physical disk, so I am not very interested in this plan.
Plan 3: Use the popular USB flash drive version of Lao Maotao PE to boot WINPE first, and then copy files or directly install the XP system in this environment. Since the hardware performance can be fully utilized in the PE environment, I currently tend to this plan. Of course, it is relatively troublesome to run the PE system on USB flash drives and mobile hard drives at present, so further research and analysis are still needed.
I really want to know everyone's opinions on this problem. I wonder how you usually handle such problems?
