jaclaz

No, a much higher resolution image is needed, but we can play the game reversed , this is how one will look like, you find it/them on the board : http://www.littelfuse.com/products/tvs-diodes/surface-mount.aspx See this for an actual example on your board: http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?t=18870&start=41 http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9905/hds721010cla332.jpg However they are rectangular, usually but not *always* black, and they will be very near the connector, with one side connected to 0/ground and the other connected to 5v or 12V. jaclaz

Let's not confuse things. If you are going to a Data Recovery firm, you are going to spend anything from 300 to 3,000 US$ to get the data recovered, this includes a new disk drive holding the recovered data, and of course you will need to send them the WHOLE drive (and normally the failed drive is NOT returned, as they will need to find a replacement PCB and they will keep it for further uses) If you are going to a PCB replacement firm, you are going to simply buy a functional PCB recovered/salvaged from another (working) disk drive. A number of firms, if you send them the "old" PCB ONLY, will - as a service - transfer the old firmware to the salvaged PCB they will send you, typically this will cost, including the supply of the PCB, anything between 40 and 80 US$. Obviously in this latter case, all the data recovery (if needed) is your own problem, and as well IF other parts of the disk drive were fried (let's say one or more heads) the risk of having spent vainly 50 bucks or so is on you. jaclaz

Dencorso posted a picture on how a TVS diode looks like, unfortunately it is not a "circular black piece". SATA power connection: http://pinouts.ru/Power/sata-power_pinout.shtml 0V=Ground jaclaz

Wait a minute. The idea is that you send just the board and they will provide a replacement board, taking the firmware from the "old" board and transferring it to the "new" one. This makes sense only to attempt recovering the data. There is no way to know if the *whatever* fried the board affected other parts of the disk drive, so it makes no sense whatever to attempt "repairing" a disk drive, once you hopefully get the data, you buy a new disk drive (or two). jaclaz

Bascially measure the continuity (resistance) between the +5V and the 0 and from +12V and 0 with *any* multimeter, if you have a direct short (0 Ohms) it is likely that the TVS was triggered. A TVS is more like a switch that can only be flipped once, it is normally "open" and when triggered becomes "closed", shorting the power line. If this is the case it is only needed to desolder it/them, the disk won't be anymore "protected" of course. If you can take a picture of the board, usually it is easy to identify components. For a PCB transplant there are two possible cases, there is a separate chip with the "adaptive data" (which is relatively easy to "transplant" as usually it is an 8 pin chip) or there is the need to transplant the whole processor (and that may be really tricky). IF the first case, it can be done even DIY, if the second there are no or little chances without a professional lab. Some of the people that can provide replacement boards will also make the ROM (actually NVRAM) swap or transfer the firmware. I don't want to seem like I am "sponsoring" a given firm, but I know one that can provide the PCB and do the firmware swap, and they are nice, competent guys in my experience, in case of need PM me. jaclaz

Check if, by any chance, it is not a TVS diode. Some (most) hard disks have one, or in some cases 2, one for the 5 V and one on the 12 V one. They are there to protect disks from "queer" things happenings to the power supply (and thus sending wrong voltage and the like to the power line of the device). If thisis the case, it is just a matter of removing the component (by design when it is triggered it shortens the V+ to ground). BUT while you are shopping, do invest a few bucks and buy a PSU tester, a hard disk PCB may fry for *whatever* reasons, but two in a row seem to me like too much a coincidence to have no connection with the Power Supply Unit. Which EXACT make/model are those hard disks? jaclaz

Essentially: 74EB means the OPPOSITE of 75EB one is "jump if" and the other one is "jump if not" (or viceversa, cannot remember)9090 means "do nothing" jaclaz

Yep, they are working on it: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=24464 jaclaz

Find a site/page that gives you this issue and post a link to it, until then what you'll get would be probably random attempts to explain something that is yet "undefined". jaclaz

Well, "a" browser might not, but my Opera (most probably "recklessly" ) got it fine . jaclaz

DP, what do you mean? I mean is the link the issue (you cannot resolve/get to it) or is it the batch file (i.e. you got the batch file "schedule.bat" from the link BUT the batch does not work for you)? The file is attached, in case. jaclaz schedule.zip

And, only to add to the list, a lesser known tool by McAfee called Bintext: http://www.mcafee.com/us/downloads/free-tools/bintext.aspx is very convenient/easy to use. jaclaz

Oww, come on, I was kidding, like "Thou shalt not take the name of ..." jaclaz

While still using FAT16 as underlying filesystem for the "boot" volume, personally I would still attempt to run Windows 3.11 on 7.x rather than on 6.2x, just in case: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/97945-windows-311-and-ms-dos-71/ Working link to 3xStart: https://web.archive.org/web/20081221094417/http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/win3x.htm Opera 3.62 (16 bit) used to work fine on 3.11: http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=12102 http://arc.opera.com/pub/opera/win/362/english/ jaclaz

Just in case, whenever "service management" is involved, a good resource/reference is Black Viper: http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-xp-x86-32-bit-service-pack-3-service-configurations/ jaclaz

Sure , but if you are subject to this slight mistyping, you'd better call them "retired people" as it provides somewhat less possibilities of a misunderstanding . jaclaz

Sure. This is EXACTLY the reason why telephone (and keyboard) sanitizers are such a pillar in our society, and the EXACT same reason why a more evoluted race like the Golgafrinchans would send them away on the "B" ark first: http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Golgafrincham to only later discover their vital importance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minor_The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_characters#Telephone_Sanitizer jaclaz

And to be even pickier this can be also done in DOS/Windows9x/Me, using LetterAssigner, and this makes a nice loopback to: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/118119-patched-iosys-for-9xme/ Sure , but while doing so, you named in vain the NT . jaclaz

Well, there are (just for the record) two kinds of USB Mice/Keyboards. One that is compatible (through an adapter) to PS/2 and one that it is not, if you have the latter type, they simply wont' work. More generally, you are describing a "haunted" system , though this is possible, I tend to believe not in voodoo, it is more probable that your system has some intermittent hardware issue. It is not uncommon, on old systems that *something* is simply "cooked up" or, even if each component is ok, that some contacts are not perfect. What I would do in your case would be to first thing disassemble the PC parts, clean the thingy from dust and reseat everything, then carry on some diagnostics, particularly on hard disk and RAM. If you have available (or can borrow) a PSU, it won't be such a bad idea to try the system with it, it happens that a "weared out" power supply starts creating every kind of issues, phantom devices and what not. The usual approach is to disconnect *everything* from the PC (non first hard disk(s), CD/DVD drives, add on cards, etc.) and test it, then re-add one by one any non-essential device. It is also possible that your OS have been partially corrupted, but it is less likely, judging from the *random* symptoms you reported. About directly logging in as said and AFAICR, the idea of Autologon is that the account is password protected but the password is provided automatically. You may want, instead of using the method(s) linked to, to use this: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963905.aspx which is rather "user friendly" (besides making the password encrypted) There is a valid alternative solution through a component used in XP Embedded, called minlogon BUT it is not available/redistributable. And there is a way to disable the checking of the password completely, but it will behave more like a "Normal" user with an empty password, you will still be prompted for a password and you will have to click to login. jaclaz

To be picky (as I am ) there is also the fact about the drive lettering algorithm being slightly different "by design" in DOS and NT, just for the record: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/35329-ever-wondered-why-xp-setup-changes-drive-letters/?p=243053 DOS: https://web.archive.org/web/20100820162832/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/51978 NT: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/93373/en-us http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234048/en-us and if you add to this the different volume ID's that the DOS and the NT can recognize, it is fairly easy on multi-hard disk systems or when there is any "non-floppy" or "non-harddisk" device connected (or even those connected through an interface that needs a driver in CONFIG.SYS) to have mismatching drive letter assignments. jaclaz

I believe (as I said earlier) that - at least from what you reported - you used ONLY PARTIALLY "Method 2" on the given MS KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315231/en-us The idea of "autologon" AFAICR is that a password MUST be set (and then it is automatically provided at logon), I suspect that *somehow* you managed to set autologon with a blank password and this is the "root" of the issue. What about the BIOS password, did you solve that issue? jaclaz

They are WHAT? jaclaz

I must be missing something , but if you "fix" the path to: %~dp0subfolder\oem\ %~dp0subfolder\oem\runonceex\ in oem.cmd, you actually KNOW the path to \OEM\RunOnceEx\ and the whole exercise is vain, you can directly hardcode it to \subfolder\oem\runonceex\ in the "main" batch. I mean, the expected situation is this one: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/173102-batch-search-file-in-all-drives-script-help-needed/?p=1090274 Of course putting the actual file in root of the drive (or in a fixed, known path) would be much more convenient (and much, much faster), but if the OP really wants this (more complex than needed BTW) setup, he will probably have his own reasons for it. One could even use a self-deleting batch in root, if the issue is about "cluttering" the root of the drive, but we miss a description of the actual "final goal" and the environment/reason why this is needed. jaclaz

I am failing to see why you are asking questions when you already know all the answers to them. jaclaz

I have to presume that you are missing the definition of the adverb EXACTLY. EXACTLY how many partitions are on the disk? Are they all primary, or some are primary and some are logical volumes inside extended, describe them EXACTLY? On WHICH EXACT CHS each of them starts and ends? EXACTLY how many sectors are in each of them? How big EXACTLY is the hard disk? etc., etc. Do yourself a favour , get the UBCD: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ and burn it to CD. Then use the RPM in it. I don't want to know where/how you found Partition Magic for download. Then (if possible at all) do follow the advice of making the first, active primary partition a small FAT16 partition, believe me when I tell you that it will save you a lot of headaches, before or later. Get also bootpart from here: http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm there is a reason why Gilles Vollant (besides yours truly) says: BTW as hinted earlier, it makes VERY LITTLE SENSE (unless you want some additional troubles) to install NT 4.00 on NTFS on a system that will dual boot with 2K or later, however, JFYI: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/169500-chkdsk-refuses-to-check-ntfs-volume-under-windows-nt-40/ jaclaz