[Split Windows 2000 into startup and source folders]

Hello, does anyone know how to split windows 2000 or XP for that matter into the startup folder and then the source folder?

I have a boot disc that uses isolinunx to boot, isolinux loads a boot sector i.e. XPPO.BIN which starts SETUPLDR inside the boot folder, this then looks at txtsetup.sif to find d:\root\XPPO\i386...etc etc.

But unfortunately I have forgotten how I split these up in the first place!

[Can't get PC-Check to boot]

I am having trouble booting a floppy image of PC-Check, a diagnostics program. It works fine using BCDW but I want to transfer it to a USB drive and BCDW doesn't seem to support USB drives. It works fine using syslinux/isolinux but only if you don't use menu.c32 or vesamenu.c32 - and I want to have some kind of menu system.

I have tried using the memtest parameters RAW, BIGRAW and SAFEINT but doesn't make any difference. Grub4Dos also doesn't work.

I am presuming that because it is a program that tests memory, it wants to use as much base memory as possible, therefore using menu.c32 or vesamenu.c32 just tips it over the limit, but I really haven't a clue.

Any ideas?

[Problem with disk geometry / partition table]

There seems to be something very wrong with my partition table / MBR / whatever.

Just recently I have started to get a lot of file system errors although there are definitely not bad sectors as confirmed by Maxtor diagnostics. Partition magic 8 reports that the drive is BAD and gives this error:

Error #106: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.

ucBeginSector expected to be 1, not 7.

When I go to the recovery console in XP and do 'fixmbr' it says there is something wrong with the MBR but doesn't actually fix it.

I tried something called Partition Table Doctor which said there was a problem but the 'fix' seemed to involve deleting one the partitions which wasn't a great help, and it was a demo anyway.

I have tried to use TestDisk but it doesn't make a lot of sense. Strangely, it says the disc geometry is CHS 24792/255/63 but Maxtor diag says it is 395136/16/63, is this the cause? However I looked at the geometry of another (working) drive and testdisk values also didn't match the maxtor ones.

This is what PartitionInfo says:

====================================================================================================

=======

Disk Geometry Information for Disk 1: 24792 Cylinders, 255 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track

System PartSect # Boot BCyl Head Sect FS ECyl Head Sect StartSect NumSects

====================================================================================================

=======

0 0 80 0 1 1 07 1023 254 63 63 48,596,562

Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

Actual values are:

0 0 80 0 1 1 07 3024 254 63 63 48596562

0 1 00 1023 0 7 07 1023 254 63 48,596,631 349,686,849

Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.

Actual values are:

0 1 00 3025 0 7 07 24791 254 63 48596631 349686849

Error #106: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.

ucBeginSector expected to be 1, not 7.

Any help is very much appreciated!

[[HOWTO] Using DriverPacks w/ Sysprep]

Hello, I followed these instructions and it worked amazingly well, in fact there was not a single unknown device left in the device manager, I couldn't believe it!

However I don't understand HOW it works, e.g. what do devpath.exe and makePNF.exe do?

I have tried to find info about them but just seem to end up at bizarre chinese pages with lots of wierd characters in.

The reason I am asking is because I want to know how far back in the instructions you have to go if you update the driver packs, can you just extract new driverpacks into C:\D\ and then rerun the steps from makePNF?

Also, another question which I have asked elsewhere and noone really seems to have answered...If you set your IDE controller to 'Standard' in your universal image do you still need to do 'sysprep -bmsd'?

[Why use sysprep?]

If you use the 'standard' IDE ATA/ATAPI controller for an XP image and make sure you restore to a machine with the same HAL, do you not have a sort of universal image?

Obviously it won't work with some SATA / RAID controllers and you will have to install new drivers, but I am just wondering why every says you have to use Sysprep?

[Some questions about universal imaging, sysprep etc...]

I have been trying to get my head around building a universal XP image and have a few questions:

Sysprep: What settings are best for sysprep, considering I just want to use it for the purpose of making a universal image, nothing else? Also what command line arguments do I need to use?

HAL problem: I understand the HAL problem but just wonder what is the best way to handle it? Will the 'haldetect.vbs' script do the job and how do you actually initialize this from sysprep? Or is it best to use something like mysysprep?

Mass Storage Problem: I can see why it would be a problem trying to ghost onto say a SATA controller that wasn't supported in XP (i.e. you have to press F6 when installing windows) but XP does work with most hard drive controllers 'out of the box' so why is this a problem when ghosting? Doesn't sysprep strip out all the chipset drivers anyway when it runs?

Driverpacks: Is it best to integrate the driverpacks into the installation CD i.e. using driverpacks base or to do it later using sysprep?

I386 folder: Why do you need to put \i386 in sysprep, aren't all the files from the cd copied to the hard drive when yo install windows. Also if you use the driver packs does this mean you won't need the i386 folder?

Hope these make sense, my head hurts.

[XP Powerpacker and SFC]

Does a 'powerpacked' cd work with SFC?

i.e. will it pick up your cd when you do 'sfc /scannow'?

[BCDW sometimes not booting]

Cheers, I've actually sorted it out by booting isolinux first, it was actually surprisingly easy although now its tempting to base the cd around isolinux seeing as how well it works for UBCD4, BCDW is a bit outdated these days.

[BCDW sometimes not booting]

Its not particularly old or new machines - the one computer it never boots up on is actually my own which is an ASUS socket 939 board so I always have to use virtual PC.

I think my version of UBCD is 3. How do you chainload BCDW from CDShell?

[BCDW sometimes not booting]

I use a multiboot CD based around BCDW but some computers won't boot it, I presume they don't like no-emulation boot sectors. Is there any way around this?

I notice that UBCD does boot on these machines, is it possbile to load BCDW from the UBCD loader but sort of invisibly?

I noticed that you can chainload BCDW from isolinux but the slight problem here is that I already have an isolinux folder on the CD which I use to run gparted from BCDW and it might get a bit messy, also I don't know if isolinux will be better at booting than BCDW.

Alternatively, if there is no way around this, is there some kind of alternative to BCDW which will boot the following:

windows XP home

all the disk utilities such as IBM DFT (mostly iso's)

gparted

partition magic

ghost 2003