dencorso

Yes, precisely. But notice that when I first raised such hypotetic scenario, I took care to remark it was "less probable, but not impossible", IMO. If I had to place a bet, I'd bet on WD buying Toshiba's HDD division at some point in the near future, just as I understand you would, too. I just wanted to point out that there is at least one hypotetic scenario in which the reverse might happen: I'd never bet on that, however, because I agree its probability is quite low.

I would be very surprised to see Toshiba buying WD - im pretty sure WD is the bigger of the two and with the amount of HD companies they've absorbed they seem intent on winning in the HD space. Sure WD is bigger. But maybe Japan (and perhaps not just Japan) would sleep better if all the technology pertaining to such a necessary resource as HDDs did not become again concentrated in the US. Or, in other words, politics may play a role at it.

I really wouldn't be surprised if, in the next few years, WD bought Toshiba or (less probable, but not impossible) the other way round. For those, like us, that have use for older hardware, there still is some variability in the market, and it'll remain on eBay and the like. Now, for those for whom only the bleeding edge really counts, well...

What reason could there possibly be for this request?! It's hard to tell. Then again, whatever is hidden, can always be unveiled. Patience and a debugger go a real long way, and there are far too many people annoyed with every new twist of the current MS products, to take much time before someone comes out with a "Toolbar Revealer" or the like. I bet you won't have to wait long for it.

In fact, Seagate, Toshiba and Western Digital are all that remains. Hic sunt dracones.

Are there any decent write-blocker priced below US$ 100? And thanks for the heads up... maybe I'll try my hand some day at building WinFE by hand. Seems interesting.

Nor using the cloud...

Windows 8 Continues to Fail has a quite interesting comparison between Vista and Win 8 user share, during the first year after their launch. Not at all surprisingly, Vista did way better!

Tin Hat is the most non-interfering linux there is. It mounts nothing by default on boot. It's available as an .ISO, from the place I linked in my previous post. But some apps surely must be added to it for it to become a true maintenence/forensic tool. Changing subjects, I split the thread just below joakim's post, because, up to now this new thread has bean a discussion among you, jaclaz and me, so it maks sense that one of the 3 should get the 1st post, that gives control over the thread title, and you were the lucky one... That being the case, please take your time to rename the thread properly, I merely gave it a provisional title, as required to split a new thread, OK?

Did you ever use Tin Hat?

Your quota must be full. Supreme Sponsors have higher quotas... Patience, please!

As a matter of fact a sterile forensic PE tool cannot even mount hard disks like devices, as windows (also a PE ) will write the Disk Signature to the disk (if there isn't already one). [...] Do not confuse "completely read only" with "volatile" . In other words: the PE itself is guaranteed to remain unchanged, being identical before and after use (obviously, when it's in a Read-Only Medium like a CD or DVD, much less so, when it's in a pendrive), while the target machine may (and usually, in fact, does) change becoming different before and after being host of a PE OS. The PE caters for it's own unchangeability, the forensic OS (not necessarily a PE) caters for the host machine's unchangeability. They're, therefore, totally different animals. There is, however, at least one project that creates a reliable sterile forensic PE (findable at reboot.pro), and there are classics like Tin Hat Linux (which is based on Gentoo), for those requiring forensic tools, among other options.

Sure. I'll see that it gets fixed. Your Supreme Sponsor donation I remember well, because we exchanged posts about it. Any other Sponsor donnor who lost the badge please PM me. Rest assured it may take some days, but it'll be fixed.

I've got some such errors tonight (3, I think). Let's not worry yet, but keep on guard... those error should disappear in some more days... If they don't, we sure still have a problem.

How so? Some so called "driver errors" may still appear, but provided they don't prevent normal forum use it's all right. xper didn't finish it yet, and the forums just returned to usability, after two days. Moreover, attachments and the messenger are both working as they should...

In a way, the database are the forums. So, when it goes bad, beyond repair, all that can be done is to fall back to an earlier back-up. Whoever (me included) posted during the high instability period we've been trhough, did so at his/her own risk, knowing the database was unstable (so the posts might disappear in the ether). I think we're stable again, but some more days of stability are needed before we can be sure. AFAICS, most posts from the last four days were lost, I'm sorry. Older content is OK.

KB982168.exe is really tricky. It does contain three .msp files from inside the package. Two are meant for .NET 2.0 SP2 (namely: NDP20SP2-KB976765.msp and NDP20SP2-KB980773.msp) which install without causing any problem, from either the GDRGDR or the QFEGDR cabs, indifferently. The last one NDP30SP2-KB976769.msp is a different case altogether: when one installs the GDRGDR.cab, MS Update continues to offer KB982168, despite declaring, every time, that the install was successful. However, when one installs the QFEGDR.cab from NDP30SP2-KB976769.msp , MS Update stops offering KB982168, at last!!! It turns out that only the QFEGDR.cab contains a file called "ServiceMonikerSupport.dll", which is absent from the GDRGDR.cab, but, it seems, required for MS Update to consider the update as completely done. Here are some more details about ServiceMonikerSupport.dll: v. 3.0.4506.4532 (QFE.030729-4500), size: 17,256 bytes, CRC32 = 59CD7466, MD5 = F50CEF4F2E0C72299F2D901BB3E286F2, PE Timestamp: 0x4BBD6015 or Thu Apr 08, 2010 04:48:21 GMT.

Same problem all week. Got worse before getting better. xper working hard at it in the last 3 days. Still at it right now. Write more later, since this message may disappear soon. Content from about the last 4 days is mostly gone, but, then again, we posted at our own risk, while knowing full well things were unstable... Omelettes cannot be made without the breaking of (at least some) eggs. @xper: Thanks for getting it working again. Appreciated!

As in: I confirm it: neither I am being able to upload any file, right now.

Yeah, it's getting worse...

Weird! Daemon Tools v. 3.46 and 3.47 should work flawlessly. There's something definitively fishy with your installation...

Grub4DOS allows for booting from various HDDs and from various partitions on each of the HDDs.

Welcome back!