help making an bootable xp usb stick?

i have tried to do this on my own but unfortunately i'm struggling. i am trying to create a bootable xp stick to repair some problems with my computer. the cd\dvd drive doesnt work and my bios wont boot from my external cd\dvd drive. so i've resorted to making my first boot usb stick.

i was using this site's guide:
http://www.cekerz.com/how-to-setup-windows-xp-sp3-from-usb-drive

and all was going well until i had to manually copy the i386 folder to the usb drive, step 7 in part 2.

i keep getting this error, "cannot copy file, the parameter is incorrect"

i should note, before this guide i had successfully copied the folder over before but had to format the drive stick to follow the guide.

i dont know whats going wrong, i have searched about this error online and it seems to happen when people are trying to copy 4GB+ worth of files over and something about FAT32 will only let you copy 4GB even if the drive is much bigger than that. and to fix that, format it to nfts or something. but i dont think that's my problem as my i386 folder is only 1.09gb and i've got a 4gb stick with 3.7gb free after these boot programs format it. i have also tried zipping the folder and moving it on the drive (to then unzip it) and i get the same error.

so im thinking about trying some other method but at this point i've tried a few and have struggled with all of them so im looking for some help

thanks

 

Hello,
If you want a program that you can boot to with all of the recovery tools and utilities, get Hirens Boot CD.

Then download Unetbootin. Open the app in an admin account. Check the Disk Image button. Select iso from the drop down box. Point to the iso file you downloaded. For "type" make sure your USB drive is listed and not your hard drive. Then click OK. You should be able to boot from the USB.

You would want to use MiniXP on the disk.

Let me know how this goes. There is another way to boot Hirens from a USB key that is similar.