jaclaz

Good. I am still thinking about the *need* of a suitable way to have the mechanism work, now that the issue has been found, in a more "consistent" way or if it is ok, as it seems, to leave the bootsector with the 4Kb value at the end of mkprilog.cmd and convert it to 512 byte value at the start of mkdualdisk.cmd. I could of course make sure about which value (the 512 or the 4 Kb) to write to the MBR by getting it from either bootsectors written in the image, but in order to do so I would need to access (and thus make a temporary copy) of the one or the other, while till now, we make only a temporary copy of the MBR for the checks which is "more elegant" (provided that a half-@§§ed batch can be defined elegant). In theory I could also "unify" the mkprilog.cmd and the mkdualdisk.cmd into a single batch, but I would need to "insert" between the two a set of diskpart commands, to create automagically the second NTFS partition, something that may (or may be not) a good idea, as it would greatly limit the freedom of the user, which may well decide to make instead of the huge NTFS partition spanning the whole disk - say - two more NTFS partitions, one only readable/accessible when on 512 b/s device and one only readable/accessible when on 4096 b/s device. Anyway for the moment let's see if the "end result", as is, works fine. jaclaz

OT , but as often happens not that much , I previously posted my overall not-too-bad impression of use of a no-name, el-cheapo Android based tablet, that a friend of mine bought for around 90 €: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155290-windows-8-deeper-impressions/page-235#entry1084400 I found out how similar devices: http://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=12579/ can now be found with Windows 8.x installed for *anything* between 70 and 100 £, i.e. something like 100 to 130 €, and possibly with much better underlying hardware... Since basically the Android OS is free, the cost of hardware should be roughly comparable and there must be some margin of profit both for the seller and for the manufacturer, I wonder how much does MS get for one of these "OEM" licenses. jaclaz

Wasn't the main "switch" in Vista ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Driver_Model#Criticism jaclaz

Typo (actually missing operands ) in the proposed edit, this (part of the lines added to mkdualdisk.cmd): Should really be: jaclaz

Which is sad , as it shows how old I am , having lost it some 15 years ago : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=&showtopic=11383&view=findpost&p=70389 jaclaz

The BreadBox Ensemble (just like it's predecessor NewDeal Office) is/was last evolution of GEOS/GeoWorks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(16-bit_operating_system) http://toastytech.com/guis/indexgeos.html Of course the original was more Windows 3.x-like, while the New Deal thingy was pretty much 95ish: http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html The thingy worked very well AFAICR, had very little hardware requirements (being essentially a DOS shell). If you put it in perspective, or if you ever loaded the Windows 95 first edition through floppies you can understand how at the time it wasn't a bad idea to come out with something providing a good enough GUI on low power machines, remember how when the Windows 95 came out it needed rather "beefy" machines, a "standard" Windows 3.x would run with 4 Mb and a "good, fast system" had double that, 8 Mb typically. Just for the record, I would like to highlight a comment on the given Toastytech site: http://toastytech.com/guis/nd32.html jaclaz

Which is good, as jaclaz could swear that he replied to that reply , most probably a glitch in the matrix (there have been a few issues with the board in the last few days): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/161919-why-was-msfn-down-yesterday-and-why-is-it-still-slow/?p=1092824 Till now we don't know if your disk is in BUSY state or not. You should try to check with mhdd or hdat1 or victoria to make sure that it is (or it is not). IF the disk is in BUSY state, it won't communicate properly through the serial (hence the need to "force" a "loop exit" by generating a hardware error, i.e. insulating the PCB contacts, the head ones, or the motor ones or both and/or additionally shorting the Read Channel, depending on models and situation). Imagine that the disk is running DOS and an endless loop batch was started. You need to press CTRL+C to stop the execution and get to command line, BUT IF BREAK=OFF was specified: http://www.computerhope.com/breakhlp.htm you cannot anymore, but if you generate a hardware error execution may well be stopped.... There is however a difference between the insulating of one or the other (or both) the contacts and the Read Channel shorting, the first is to access the interface, the second is a way to avoid that a specific command enters another loop of it's own. jaclaz

Yep , that's the idea of note [1] in my post. I know nothing or very little about drivers, mind you, but I have seen too many failed attempts to write proper drivers and too many subsequent revisions/versions of what should normally be a "plain enough" piece of code, and I suspect that - besides the complexity of the NT structure - there is a large amount of misssing or even plainly wrong documentation. jaclaz

Yep , though I did not specified it I had expected something more along the lines of: Condition #1 is OK: ::first partition must be type 0F, start at offset 63 and be 1 sector in length Condition #2 is OK: ::second partition must be type 01 and start at offset 64 Condition #3 AND #4 Fail while either #3 or #4 should have succeeded: ::... and it's start+length should ::be 8 times the start of third partition (if formatted MB aligned) or 8 times the :: start of the third partition - 63 ::if formatted head/cylinder aligned Condition #5 is OK: ::third partition must be type 07 Condition #6 is OK: ::fourth partition must be type 00 Let's see what is the issue in #3/#4, the one that applies in XP is #4 and is tested OK here (but due to the different/virtual environment in which I experimented it may well need to be corrected as well, on further tests, so for the moment we need to check just #3: The partition you created starts Entry478_Start=65536 Immediately after the FAT12 partition Entry462_Start=64 Entry462_Length=65472 sum462=65536 and not, as expected , at 65536/8=8192 The issue lies actually in the "other" batch, mkprilog, due to the limitations of the virtual disk driver I am using to test, I need to create the second NTFS partition with the disk mounted as 512 b/s and run it with the /testonly switch, while you are (obviously) doing everything in 4Kb/s. In a nutshell, we need to find a way to set temporarily the Entry462_Length to 1/8th of what it is now to allow you to create the NTFS partition in Disk Manager at the "right" address. Temporarily, you need to edit mkprilog.cmd, these lines: should become: and add a line to mkdualdisk.cmd here: should become: These two edits should allow you to go further in the creation of the dual mode disk. In the meantime I will think about a way to pass the value wanted needed from mkprilog.cmd to mkdualdisk.cmd in a more "proper" or "sensible" way. jaclaz

Basically you are confirming that the MS choice of removing PAE from XP was - though a perverted one - valid , what happened at the time, more or less was: Since the hardware, but mainly the Third Party's software and particularly drivers suck (and suck big)[1] we remove the feature, limiting it to Server 2003(and ONLY on the Enterprise/Datacenter editions and - but senselessly limited to 8 Gb - on the lesser known "Windows Storage Server 2003") where both hardware and drivers are better checked, i.e. there is more money per unit involved... ... since we are MS we will put the blame on the Third Parties and start senselessly pushing 64 bit computing, creating to both the end users and to the Third Parties involved, even those that were involved in the writing of those sucking drivers, every kind of new problem/issue. This has the not-so trifling advantage that when we will starting pushing for a new (artificially made incompatible) disk partitioning structure and a new (artificially made incompatible) firmware, people won't be shocked by it, as they will by that time be used to all kind of arrogant, senseless or plainly stupid move we will make. And of course, as soon as the issues caused by these two unneeded changes will start to fade away because people will either get used to them or find workarounds, we will make a couple new Operating Systems that will be made artificially incompatible even visually with anything else.... jaclaz [1] ... and maybe the fact that we changed three times in three years the understructure and the driver models, each time failing to provide complete documentation or to provide real-world working sampled more complex than hello-world-type simplified and largely malfunctioning sample drivers is marginally involved in this ...

Is this image for real? :00t: It reminds me somehow of the Psion 3 interface: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/sibo3a or of the NewDeal/Breadbox Ensemble "Preferences" one: http://toastytech.com/guis/bbe.html (which the difference that the Psion 3 icons were actually nice and that the Breadbox ones had colours ). So the teacher has deprived the 5 year old kids designing the interface of their colour pastels and they were left with just a dark blue felt tip pen? jaclaz

Good (which means bad in this case) . The "recognition" of the disk happens through a "five point voting system": One or more of the five checks fails, from the output you posted they all seem to verify , try (using Notepad ) a line after each "SET /A PriLog+=1" *like: ECHO Condition #1, Prilog=%Prilog%And, just before the "IF %Prilog% geq 5 (" a couple lines to see the values involved in the check: SET Entry4SET sumSET byjaclaz

You mean you ran the mkPriLog.cmd by double ckicking on it? I guess I'll have to add a final PAUSE to it, since the idea that batches, particularly when experimenting, should ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS run from an open command prompt in which you navigate to the directory where the batch is and then you type it's name and hit the [ENTER] key is something that simply doesn't go through as a message, not even getting to an experienced member like you are. And before you ask, the switcher.cmd is an exception to the above general rule and CAN be run by double clicking on it, as it was designed for it. I guess I will have to review the other two batches making sure that they can be run also by double clicking on them having all their functionalities. jaclaz

Yep, I must have changed names while developing the batches , the correct file name is "mkdualdisk.cmd" of course, I'll edit/correct the readme.txt. When you run mkprilog.cmd, at the end it should display: Now , check the drive letter assigned in Disk Manager to the 256 MB FAT (or assign to it one), you will see how that that same drive letter in "My Computer" is assigned to the 31.6 MB FAT partition (the size of the FAT partition comes from the choice you made in mkprilog.cmd, where you are asked to provide a size for the partition between 1 and 32 Mb). The batch create however an image with only one partition, the first one, primary (on the left in Disk Manager) which is a (smallish) FAT(12) one and the second one (on the right in Disk Manager) which is a (largish) NTFS partition that you create manually in DIsk Manager, which is later trasformed by the riunning of mkdualdisk.cmd into a Logical Volume inside Extended so guess to which partition I refer with: I know that the choice of using dark blue for primary partition and of light blue for logical volumes and a tiny light green border around the Extended partition is not the best choice in the world to distinguish something visually, but you should sue MS for this . I cannot refer to the partition as having a given size, as it depends on the choice you make when running mkprilog, and the size of the "other" partition of course depends from the size of the disk and/or from the size of the partition you created manually in Disk Manager, I thought, that order (first), filesystem used (FAT12) and nature of partition (primary) was clear enough, but I am open to any suggestion to make this more clear. The .bss files should have been generated in the same folder where mkdualmode.cmd was run, i.e. C:\MkPriLog\ in your case, and where should be also the dsfi.exe, elevate.exe and Switcher.cmd, maybe I could call this "tool folder" to better make it clear? The file as4kbNTFS.bss and as512NTFS.bss are created by "mkdualdisk.cmd" when it displays: I may add a couple more lines f text so that it becomes: jaclaz

Well, there are hundred of thousands of pages on the MS website, and possibly tens related to or containing guides to build a WinPE form any among Windows Vista, 7 or 8/8.1, if you followed one for making a BIOS bootable WinPE, what you have in your hands may be a BIOS bootable USB stick, which won't normally boot from UEFI. UEFI (stupidly) needs a FAT (FAT12, FAT16 or FAT32) partition/volume and needs it's own EFI bootloader. You may have followed "latest" instructions (related to Windows 8/8.1) and in this case you should have created a USB stick with a single FAT32 partition that should be bootable on BOTH BIOS and UEFI: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825109.aspx BUT you may need to access the UEFI controls on the Surface and select the .EFI file manually and/or change a few settings, like disabling TPM and secure boot, see: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/how-to-use-the-bios-uefi you can also use this as a reference: https://winfe.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/image-a-surface-pro-using-bootable-uefi-winfe1.pdf which is appropriate, since most probably what you really want to try doing is to use the WinPE (or WinFE) to make an image of the internal disk (if your Surface has a single USB port you will need a powered USB hub, besides a suitable USB hard disk). This is going to be a bit "technical" though. jaclaz

Yes/no Meaning that yes , there is actually an "extra dot after the com" in the posted link , which is a (recent) copy/paste from the generic DeBoyne Pollard's FGA's page: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/ but no , the link works fine here with or without the extra dot (... like we were talking here of special characters....) I wonder HOW I managed to insert it jaclaz

Probably it is the USB The Surface is AFAIK/AFAICR UEFI, is the PE on USB prepared for and tested on a UEFI machine? jaclaz

Which saddens me (your harsh situation much more than the apparent failure of my perverted humour to at least cheer you up a bit ). I guess that getting a couple of identical 1.5 Gb sticks is out of question , right? jaclaz

BUT, a normal catalytic converter (like the ones that we all have on our cars) is INEFFECTIVE (and usually is turned off/bypassed by the electronics of the cars) in two situations: in the first five minutes of engine running or so (i.e. until it heats enough to reach light-off temperature) when it overheats (i.e. long time at full throttle without enough cooling)AND when the stechiometric ratio of the exhaust is not within a precise range. Which means that we will need also to be equipped with an oxigen AND a methane supply and an electronic regulator correcting the stechiometric values of our farts, AND a pre-heater keeping the thingy that will be stuck you-know-where at around 400° C/750° F.... a whole new example of a PITA.... jaclaz

I never doubted it , I am pretty sure that your .vbs (or other) scripts are well thought out and well written , I was only pointing out how your earlier example: was not a valid example of a test of *anything* for a "special" character in a path (because "$" is not "special"). Gotta go , I have to test my new scuba diving equipment and - strangely enough - I go underwater to test it, as last time I tested one by making a short (but brisk ) walk outside it came out eventually that it was not fully waterproof... @radix Well, you have been told (and re-told): http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/dukhat-on-foolishness.html jaclaz

Ok, I have checked several possible approaches, of them only two passed the tests (aiming to have something reproducible and extendable/modifiable without size constraints, queer behaviours or more generally producing less compatible results). The partitioning schemes consist in either a Primary partition with a small FAT12 volume + the "rest of the disk" in a (huge) NTFS logical volume inside extended (which I cleverly called "PriLog") or in two logical volumes inside extended, the first being the small FAT12 volume and the second the huge NTFS volume (which I expectedly called TwoLog). The second one did not make it after a pass of Occam's Razor as it involved a double-double EPBR (too complex and more prone to errors) while offering NO advantages (if not that of using only one MBR partition table entry, something not really an issue for the specific use of a dual USB/eSATA connection of an external disk) whilst the PriLog may offer "direct" bootability (at least on 512 bytes/sector interface) and when booting the switch may be offered by - say - a simple, small grub4dos batch. There is a brief ReadMe.txt in the attached archive that should be READ (and READ CAREFULLY) before using the batches, which are however HEAVILY commented, so that it should be not difficult to understand the behaviour/functioning of the thingy. Use of them is of course experimental, and even more obviously it is potentially dangerous , though I tried my best to add as many checks as possible (may be even too many of them). They seem to work fine in my XP on a (simulated/virtual) disk mounted as either 4kb or 512 bytes/sector device, but I need feedback on how it behaves on Vista (and later). I am adding also a simple Excel spreadsheet from which it may be easier to understand the scheme, basically we make a (fake) Extended Partition only one sector in size that magically contains either the whole disk (on 512 bytes/sector device) or only the logical (NTFS) huge volume (on 4kb/sector device, at least this is what Windows Disk Manager thinks . jaclaz mkPriLog.zip Pri_TwoLog.zip

And the problem is? (besides your broken Google I mean ) http://comptb.cects.com/using-the-winrar-command-line-tools-in-windows/ jaclaz

Well, Al Gore and some of the richest/most influent people on the planet are in Davos and the roughly 1700 private jets flights of course do not count as contribution to Global Warming. http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/20/1700-private-jets-fly-to-davos-to-discuss-global-warming/ According to this: http://www.weforum.org/sessions/summary/whats-next-climate-action I see that all these years that I believed that the surface of a (black) car became hot because of solar irradiance (BTW the same kind of thing that solar plants/panels use to produce energy) were wastes, it is the atmposphere temperature that allows us to fry eggs on (black) cars bonnets.... And as well, in my old style/old school math, 400.000x365=146,000,000 and given that the Earth surface (including Oceans, seas and lakes) amounts to roughly: http://www.universetoday.com/25756/surface-area-of-the-earth/ 510,000,000 square kilometers, it means that one of these fictional bombs have hit on average every 510/146=3.50 sq.km in the last year only , and since the old Nagasaki/Hiroshima bombs - that I believe are now considered "low power" - had destructive effect on areas comparable to that 3.5 sq.km surface, it means that we are all dead (several times in the last few years) but we didn't notice it (or maybe the effect is different). jaclaz

It is not about "limits" of batch files. The concept of "special" characters is that a few characters are "special" . Which while it remains true that it makes very little sense (actually NO sense ) to use a "special" character in a file name as it is the perfect way to make your own batches/scripts/whatever more complex than needed and have *any* third party batch/script/whatever fail, the "special" character can be dealt with - in a "special" way . Namely you need to escape "special" characters: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/escapechars.php @gunsmokingman "$" is not AFAIK/AFAICR a "special" character in batch. jaclaz

I guess that you are somehow mixing the effects with the cause. The BSY or "busy" state is a symptom (or effect) of an illness (cause). If a disk gets onto BSY state, it is because *something* in not working and causes this state. I am sorry I don't believe you , in the sense that you missed to detail something that happened (or missed to notice it), it is the first time I hear of a Seagate 7200.1x (please read as Maxtor DiamondMax2x) spontaneously going into BSY state and then "randomly" exiting it (and later "randomly" re-entering it), I mean, there must be *something* that is not affected by or connected to the firmware update that causes this behaviour. The BSY state could be the result of n different issues, but unfortunately we don't have a way to diagnose it (if not running the Seagate Short and Long tests, which however will only tell if the disk is "good" or "bad") and thus no real way to pinpoint the cause , all we know is a procedure that can exit the BSY state and "recover" the drive IF the cause is the known firmware bug or more generally a procedure capable of getting the drive out of it (and then in the case of the original issue the "final fix" is the updated firmware) jaclaz