jaclaz

Only a quick update. There are actually issues with the mounting/recognizing as RAW/etc., but hopefully I have found a method using Diskpart that seems to work. About your current issue, the files (as modified) that you have should be fine. A guess, but the total space partitioned might be needed being 8 times the size of the FAT12 image, or if you prefer the NTFS partition should be at least 7 times the size of the FAT12 you choose when running the batch. Is it possible that you chose a too big FAT12 (or a too little NTFS partition) size? Can you try again using a smallish FAT 12 size (say 1, 2 or 3 Mb) or a much larger NTFS hand made partition (at least 32*7=224+1=225 Mb if you choose the max 32 Mb size for the FAT12)? Or, if you have some patience, in a couple more days I could come out with a more "sound" set of batches. jaclaz

That's entirely your choice, that's the good thing about freedom However, if you are in the right mood: http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/pc/redbut.html Hey, you started it all through your whining... Well, it may be a competition (though I wonder if a competition at WHAT? ), but at least I claim my rights under the same freedom to consider even this nonsense something that will be useful and help someone (though most probably not you specifically). I usually tend to use Italian popular culture/proverbs in these occasions, but I will make an exception and use an English one: http://www.knowyourphrase.com/phrase-meanings/fool-and-his-money-are-soon-parted.html Come on I was clearly joking, if I had to do you a favour, I would do it for free or at the mere costs (or for a much higher sum ). jaclaz

Sure it is , but your guess at presumed will to keep compatibility with given specific apps is seemingly a guess void of any real world connection/proof. Only Explorer uses (used) thumbs.db, and their scope was very likely an attempt at speeding visualization in Explorer. Windows 7 uses by default the same method (and uses NOT the centralized database) for network folders as seen in the mentioned KB, most probably for two reasons, one similar to the original one (speeding up visualization on possibly slowish/slower access network/remote folders) and one to avoid "cluttering" the stupid (or supersmart ) centralized repository. As a side note I would like to point out how seemingly the possibly supersmart centralized database, in conjunction with the default behaviour on network folders, has the net effect, on a plain enough two computers setup set with cross access to the respective disks to have each and every thumb.db twice, once in the centralized repository and one in each folder.... And still, the mentioned KB seems like having been prompted by a number of reports of people that for one reason or the other had Windows 7 create the stupid thumb.db, example: http://www.networksteve.com/windows/topic.php/WINDOWS_7_BUG:_Explorer_Locks_"thumbs.db"_in_most_recently_viewe/?TopicId=55723&Posts=0 among the replies, I would like to point out this one: And yes, Vista is old news as well, but the good MS guys managed to NOT FIX the issue even in 8: http://alinirimia.com/2014/06/unable-to-delete-folders-in-windows-8-thumbs-db-is-a-system-file-error/ or in 8.1: http://www.overclock.net/t/1443972/windows-8-1-cant-delete-folders We MUST continue (like you do with your excellent bag of tricks/tweaks ) to resist them, to steal from Sir Winston Churchill: https://manversusideas.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/97-winston-churchill-we-will-all-go-down-fighting-to-the-end/ jaclaz

NO comment : http://www.laurenzvangaalen.nl/software/copywriter.htm http://www.baara.com/q10/ And, just for the record, two years (a little more to be exact) later and two Windows OS releases (almost two to be exact, lets say 1 3/4) later, we are EXACTLY where expected: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156866-now-theyre-chopping-up-the-start-buttons-bones/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/156866-now-theyre-chopping-up-the-start-buttons-bones/?p=999429 You see , I actually told you already ... jaclaz

AFAIK/AFAICR thumbs.db are CACHED thumbnails, on XP, on a slow device with hundreds/thousands of pictures/movies in a same directory it may (please read as will) make a difference. http://faster-pc.net/related/english/getting-rid-thumbsdb/ in other words it is not about compatibility with *any* given app/program but a way to speed up the visualization of the folder in Explorer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_thumbnail_cache or - if you prefer - the good MS guys were pretty much selfish and not in any way "keeping compatibility" with anything else, just trying to make their own Explorer (thumbnail/image) viewing faster.... And - strangely enough - the Group Policy/Registry setting is documented: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2025703 jaclaz

You didn't consider "plain stupidity" (which often and lately more often than before when MS is involved is a likely reason/explanation). jaclaz

Wait a minute. Which NAS is it? Which Filesystem is used on the NAS? I mean, is it not that the Source file(s) (on the NAS) have an ADS with Zone 3 or 4? http://blogs.technet.com/b/askcore/archive/2013/03/24/alternate-data-streams-in-ntfs.aspx IF this is the case, the issue is not in the XP itself, but rather in the file(s). Somethign like this: http://www.gasanov.net/ZoneIDTrimmer.asp may be of use then... You may mitigate the issue, depending on the file types by using an appropriate policy: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883260/en-us and a low risk type list ... or downright use SEE_MASK_NOZONECHECKS http://smallvoid.com/article/ie-attachment-manager.html http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889815/en-us jaclaz

Heck, no. That is so '60's and it may be overheard/intercepted we are well beyond that, since facial recognition and iris scan may not work in case of network failure we now use a secret handshake and a coin, something along the lines of : http://blogs.reuters.com/photographers-blog/2012/06/11/the-secret-handshake/ Of course we use LOLCAT coins, similar to this: But of course I cannot provide the exact details (actually I could, but then I would have to kill you ) jaclaz

If you have issues with Governments, you could go private. Send me a PM, I will give you my snail mail address. To it you will send an envelope containing: a US$ 5 note another US$ 5 note for non-refundable processing fees you can substitute the above two with a US$ 10 note or with a € 10 note (or two € 5 notes, you get the idea) a hand written letter[1] where you ask me nicely to send a donation of US$ 5 (or € 5 or however half of the money you send me) to bigmuscle, get a donation key/login and provide these latter to you electronically via e-mail (and NO, I DO NOT do facebook, skype or -say - twitter, ONLY plain good ol' e-mail) [1]I am not interested in your DNA , so you don' t really need - though it would be appreciated as a sign of good will and complete submission - to write the letter with your own blood. Now, apart the 100% processing fee, I would think that before doing this with me (please read as a grumpy old bastard that you met online and that may well use the whole ten bucks or euros in either beer or pizza and never get back to you) I thought that you actually knew someone that you can trust doing the same for you (and maybe even without the exorbitant fee). jaclaz

Sure, as the guy that provided it commented, for four PC's that is fine. The FOR /L loop utility becomes evident when you have the whole range 1÷255 to scan or more... ... and the "points adding system" may come of use when (if) you need to add some other condition (like -say - a Ping result that is good but that has a too high TTL or response time) ... jaclaz

Well, try again, after having deleted mycurrent.bss (you didn't actually dsfo a "really current" mycurrent.bss, as there was already an existing file and dsfo never overwrites a target). It's likely that even with the "really current" one there will be no differences, but if we check, let's actually check . jaclaz

Something like: http://ss64.com/nt/ping.html jaclaz

ZEUS, with all due respect , you don't have one of those people called "friends" or "relatives" with a paypal account that may be willing to make the donation in your name? Is having the watermark (and/or the periodical nagging) so unbearable? (or, if you prefer, is having Aero Glass so *needed* that you can't bear a few days/weeks without it?) jaclaz

Well, just for the record, nano98 is a (BTW nice) POC (Proof Of Concept) and nothing more than that, it has no practical use as it simply misses too many files/subsystems, if you are going after a very reduced Win9x you'd better go for the Winimize (it can still be found through Wayback Machine): http://reboot.pro/forum/53-winimize/ More related projects here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12326 If useful , find attached nano3.zip. jaclaz donano3.zip

It should be indifferent (both the OS and the connection). The idea is just to check if - as your last output indicates - the bootsector of the volume is currently the "as512" one. If it is and if the volume does not mount on the 512 bytes/sector connectoion (the eSata) it means that *something else*) the actual values inside the bootsecotr or in the EPBR are "wrong". jaclaz

Unfortunately jaclaz would say that you FIRST make a dd-like or "forensic sound" image of the whole disk, and ONLY later you fiddle with the disk to (hopefully) try and fix the partiion or filesystem on it. jaclaz is notoriously grumpy and won't negotiate on this basic, preliminary step. Of course you could lie and post that you already have made an image even if it is not true . But you risk that jaclaz may suggest you a destructive procedure (by mistake or intentionally ) and you would lose your data. In any case, what you can do in the meantime is to re-run TESTDISK with a log and post (possibly compressing it into a .zip archive) the actual log. Still, you need 2 (two) disks of suitable size, one to host the image (which means a 1.5 Tb disk) and another disk of similar size to the problematic one, i.e. 1 Tb. Right now we have no idea if the blackout/surge created a hardware error of some kind (which would be likely to create the " WinError 23: data error") or if the disk is "sound", and if you value your data, you should follow the standard procedure. If you do not have enough money right now to afford buying the two disk drives, it is better if you leave the failed disk alone, WITHOUT ANY further attempt to recover it until you have saved enough money to buy them (and even if your original hard disk can be recovered "in place" and "fully" you can put these twqo addtional disk drives to good use, by using them as backup media). I will re-state how a backup is not an option, it is a BASIC *need*. jaclaz

Maybe you (actually the source) is missing the BOOTMGR (as the message says). There must be (for BIOS booting) a BOOTMGR file in the root of the .iso. jaclaz

http://hddguru.com/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/mhdd_manual.en.html jaclaz

Which EXACT set of instructions? Which EXACT USB (or serial) to TTL converter? "Seems" or "is" in BSY state? Check and make sure: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/129263-instructions-for-checking-if-your-drive-is-set-to-busy-state/ In case of doubt, FORGET anything you have read ANYWHERE and ONLY try following CarterInCanada´s guide: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/133387-debricking-the-seagate-drives/ jaclaz

Actually I am out, I'll be back in a few days, but apart the possibility that dencoso pointed out, the behaviour under XP is "not normal", In other words it is possible that *something* is wrong in the values written to the "as512" bootsector (which should have been deployed correctly, at least on XP). As soon as I am back I will review the batches, veryifying the changes we introduced and adding a new batch to verify whether the correct bootsector has actually been written (and with the right values, though judging from what you posted on #121 they do seem right). What you can check in the meantime by doing, dsfo \\.\J: 0 4096 mycurrent.bss FC /B mycurrent.bss as512NTFS.bss is that the "as512" bootsector is currently the one on the drive, jaclaz

You mean on previous OS? To be fair, NO. The Registry association works by right clicking on the folder, what I personally use (on 2k and XP) is much more convenient, as it allows to open the cmd prompt inside the folder which is opened in Explorer, it is a .dll, Here: http://www.roggel.com/NGNeer/BackgroundCMD/index.shtml More here: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/111384-util-or-shell-extension-to-have-dockable-cmd-bar-in-xp/ jaclaz

@Andrew T The "tiny unallocated volume" is "normal" along the partitioning scheme adopted by all MS OS's (up to Vista). There is the *need* (it is not an actual *need*, at least not since DOS 6.22 or possibly even 5.00, but like many legends has been "kept in use" for several years and for several OS releases) of aligning the end of a volume/partition to a whole Cylinder. This means that the last CHS address on a disk is n cylinders, and since a cylinder has (normally) 255 heads and each head 63 sectors, the net result is that you cannot have a partition smaller than 255*63=16065 sectors which multiplied by 512 equals 8,225,280 bytes, Since real disk geoimetries are not (since many, many years) connected with the n/255/63 geometry used in the CHS scheme, their size is almost never a multiple of 8,225,280, so a small "unused rest" always remains at the end of the disk (unless of course you create your partitions manually or with tools that allow to specify addresses in a more accurate way. If you check when you use disk manager or similar you will see how the size of the partitions go in steps of 8 Mb (and the above is the reason why this happens). jaclaz

It still seems to me like an issue with access to the target. The NTFS partition should start on sector 65536 (on a 512 bytes/sector) so you can try using the PhysicalDrive as target. Since 65535*512=33554432 that would be: dsfi \\.\Physicaldrive1 33554432 4096 as512NTFS.bss As a side note, do you have on both the machines a XP installed? I.e. can you try the switcher.cmd "as is" on a XP OS? (just to make sure that there is not *something* else besides this kind of "protection" on Windows 8.x) jaclaz

Well, Partinfo tends to be often more alarming than needed, but in this case it has it's good reasons. It seems like the only "valid" volume on that disk is the FAT 32 Primary partition in Entry/ #2 anyway, and even that one needs to be corrected (actually should as in "better if it is") in the CHS part. In other words the first two partition entries, #0 and #1 can be deleted, and it should remain only one entry in the MBR, in #2, as follows: 0C 963/195/1 1023/254/63 15,482,880 62,672,400 BTW, the fact that now the END CHS is 48/239/63 should mean that the partition was (badly) created on a machine with one of the "strange" BIOSes typically HP and Lenovo) that use 240 heads geometry the virtual END CHS for 15,482,880 + 62,672,400 is 4864/239/63 and while the writing of 48 in the field (where you cannot actually write 4864 because it maxes out at 1023) may well have been a glitch in the matrix, the size of the partition (that ends up on head 239) when analyzed on the "normal" 255 heads geometry is really "queer". If I try the same values with a 240 cylinder geometry, the CHS becomes 1024/0/1 5168/239/63. It seems like this partition is a dd copy of a volume created on a 240 heads BIOS machine and then *somehow* deployed to this disk. All in all the idea of restarting from scratch is not that bad, though it is possible to fix the situation, you would need a good partitioning/repartitioning tool to move the FAT32 where it should be and to enlarge it to respect Cylinder/Head boundaries (optional but advised). There is no reason why repartitioning the second disk this will affect the Win9x booting, but in case you can still use bootpart or grub4dos (or both) to fix the booting *any time*. jaclaz

Run the mountvol command. This more or less means to type the word "mountvol" (without quotes) on the command line and press the [Enter] key. jaclaz