jaclaz

It's "queer" I mean the demented guys at Seagate do not provide actual specifications in what they call "data sheet": http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/expansion-hard-drive/?sku=STBV2000100#specs http://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/expansion-fam/expansion-external/en-us/docs/expansion-desktop-ds1763-4-1306us.pdf but they do state compatibility with XP SP3 (which AFAIK does not "accept" native 4Kb sectored disks as well). As a matter of fact not even Windows 7 is compatible with "native" 4Kb sectors: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009/en-us http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848035(v=vs.85).aspx The only thought I have is that *somehow* those drives have a form of AF or 512E setting (possibly Seagate proprietary) that has not been set when the disk was partitioned or that they can use "special" drivers under XP, i.e. it uses a procedure similar to the one to have BIGGER than 2 Tb disks in Windows XP: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/beyond-2tb/ But I don't know. jaclaz

Yep, there is a known comic actor here in Italy that makes a nice gag about having the earpiece on while going to a public lavatory and the people around him think he is talking to his male attribute, something along the lines of: Hi, it's a lot of time. Are you feeling better now? Sure, there is nothing like some fresh air, being able to breath freely... Good, I can perfectly understand how you feel.... jaclaz

Right now in the screenshot we CANNOT see. In any case, the first thing that you should do is to clean the USB "history", see: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/157408-usb-connectdisconnect-delay/ Manually: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/138563-usb-device-not-recognized/?p=888222#entry888222 With a tool: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/138974-problem-installing-card-reader-solved/page-3?p=890040#entry890040 Another similar tool (untested by me): http://www.pendriveapps.com/delete-usb-registry-keys-oblivion/ jaclaz

No, unfortunately not everything is understandable, and being this a "vital" matter, (to boot or not to boot, that is the question ), it is very important that we can exchange EXACT info. This: cannot be understood, as well as: The MBR is a single sector, the first absolute sector of a disk or LBA0. Typically, if the HP came with Vista or 7, partitions will be aligned to "1 Mbyte", i.e. the first partition should start on sector LBA 2048 or CHS 0/32/33. It is possible (but UNlikely) that a copy of the original MBR has been made and saved in any of the "hidden sectors". Make a copy of the first 2048 sectors of the disk (by using dd or a similar program), compress it in a .zip or 7z archive and attach it to your next post. When you use an online translator, there are some tricks that you can use: 1. use SHORT sentences 2. use SIMPLEST possible grammar/sentence structure 3 .imagine that you are talking to a child 4. try using the same online translator to translate back to the original language the result of the translation 5. if the result is different from the original, try using some different terms/construction of sentence jaclaz

Is there a difficult part in: Please, just wait. It will be back in several days, but I won't say the exact date. I don't have much time now so it may be happen tomorrow or in 5 days too. Just be patient :-) jaclaz

That's actually not that bad. The real issue is when you don't realize that they are using a bluetooth earpiece and you think you are surrounded by crazy people that talk (and often yell) at themselves. jaclaz

I see , like the graphical view here? https://web.archive.org/web/20040604165406/http://www.jbrowse.com/products/axe/screenshots.shtml I believe that Hex Edit has a similar feature, called "aerial view": http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/135474/HexEdit-Window-Binary-File-Editor http://www.hexedit.com/index.html but cannot say if last version working with Win9x (if any) has it. Hexplorer: http://sourceforge.net/projects/hexplorer/ definitely has it (and should be Win9x compatible) jaclaz

What are the actual reasons (if any) to prefer Axe over (say) Tiny Hexer, HxD, Frhed or XVI32? jaclaz

Yep . Just for the record, there is an app for it in the Windows Store http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/funny-hats/480c277d-4ce6-423a-a384-11d718365d1c/m/ROW An example of the Windows 8 productivity tools . jaclaz

Wait a minute , you have to take the oath and learn about the secret hand-shake.... jaclaz

To be fair, if someone sends me a file compressed in the new WinRar 5 format, it plainly means that the contents of the archive are not interesting/irrelevant. Using a proprietary format, that only a given Commercial software can open/access properly, when interchanging data is clearly something that only a complete moron would do. Also the WinRK rolz is not supported AFAIK. jaclaz

It's a problem. See this thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/131620-hp-notebook-the-recovery-partition-could-not-be-found/ There are several different MBR's used on different HP models. In your case, I would try using an external boot device (like a USB stick) and grub4dos (only to boot from the recovery partition). Then, once you will have hopefully restored the thingy, we'll see what can be done like using as a replacement MBLDR (or some other MBR). In other words previous experience is that if the recovery partition is working, it's just a matter of making it boot (that can be done from grub4dos or other "advanced" bootmanager). jaclaz

For NO apparent reason : jaclaz

Yep. You have a hard disk device (Harddisk1) which has a single partition, FAT32 CHS, and that is not bootable, and that has unbalanced CHS/LBA values, with a volume size of 782,180*512=4,004,478,976 bytes (i.e. most probably a USB stick) with sector size of 512 bytes. Then you have a hard disk device (harddisk2) with has two partitions, a primary and an extended. The first one, primary, has been created by Vista or later and is NOT aligned to Cylinder/head, it is NTFS (or exFAT) an has a size of 459,521,212*4096=1,882,198,884,352 with sector size of 4096 bytes. The second one, extended, has also been created by Vista or later, it is NOT aligned to Cylinder/Head, has a size of 28,852,740*4096=118,180,823,040 bytes and most probably (but I have no way to know for sure) contains a single Logical Volume formatted as FAT32. Now - dont' take it as an offence - if you wanted to create the least possibly compatible device with a DOS/Windows 98, particularly for a USB connected device, you would use: not aligned to Cylinder/head partitionsa partition starting beyond the 128 Gb barriera volume or partition on non 512 bytes sectored deviceIt seems like that drive is a "pure" 4Kb sectored one , I believe (but I have no specific experience with this) that it simply won't work unless some serious patches are implemented: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/141013-hard-drives-with-4kb-sector-size-are-now-available/ But anyway you need/should IMHO partition the disk with the first (primary) partition as the FAT32 one, and keep it below the 128 Gb limit, and have it respect Cylinder/Head boundaries, and do whatever you want to do with the rest of the disk (the second partition NTFS can be differently aligned to Mbyte and be either Primary or logical without extended, as in any case you won't access it from the Windows 98. It is possible (but improbable, since it is a USB 3.0 case) that the disk inside is not a "pure" 4Kb one, but has the possibility of being set to AF (Advanced Format), one would need to know the EXACT model of the actual disk inside. jaclaz

Make a dump of first sector of the disk (under another OS/other PC if you cannot do that on that Win 9x machine). Make it a .zip or.7z archive and attach it to your next post. You want first sector of PhysicalDrive, a suiitable app for 2K and later is Hdhacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ Or if you can somehow access it from Win9x, you can use the PTDE disk editor: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/tool/de/PTS-DE.htm jaclaz

I see , my bad . jaclaz

Well, it has been released as Freeware (for DOS): http://www.3drealms.com/news/2007/05/alien_carnage_freeware.html so everyone (in plain DOD or using dosbox) can try it. jaclaz

Of course they can, point is what will be the consequences of such a stupid move? Please choose one: everyone using an activation crackeveryone suing MS (and most probably winning) The user base of "real" Windows 2000 users was much smaller, AND there was no particular "shock" in the transition to XP (or to a later MS OS). You have to understand how the "user base" of Windows 2000 was (and is) a "professional" one, that tends - generally speaking - to whine or brag about it a lot less than "end customers", i.e. of a "more advanced" kind than the "average" XP user. At the time there was a neat separation: Professional=Windows NT 4.00 and later 2000 Home=Windows 98 and later Me In the (unfortunately short) time of Windows 2000 success, say 95% of the people came from Windows NT 4.00, and Windows 2000 is by definition "a bettered Windows NT 4.0 with plug n' play support". The transition from NT 4.00 to Windows 2000 was actually more painful than the one from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, which is, still by definition "a bettered Windows 2000, that works the same but that has some added, unneeded, bells and whistles". The real "shock" was from Windows 98 or Me to XP. , almost as much as it was the one from XP to Vista or 7. With XP MS has senselessly "pushed" on common users "professional features", and with Vista and now with 8 has pushed on professional users nonsensical features that may be suited - perhaps - to common users. It is still the same one-OS-fits-all absolutely wrong approach, which has touched it's peak with 8 . You might want to take note of the current definitions of later MS OS : Vista is a bettered XP, only much worse (original Vista, before SP's)7 is a bettered Vista , that works the same but that has some added unneeded bells and whistles"8 is a bettered 7, only much worse and with a completely wrong UIjaclaz

As an example, you could start by READing the stickies in the appropriate sections of the board, you know, like : http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/8-windows-9x-me/ http://www.msfn.org/board/forum/35-windows-nt4-2000-2003/ jaclaz

What I don't know is the actual difference between the two files on the given Gigabyte page: mb_driver_amd_sataraid_bootdisk_hseries_xp.exe <- this can be opened with 7-zip, is 376 Kb, and is a "plain" F6 SATA driver mb_driver_chipset_fm2+_xp.exe <- this I won't download, as it is a whopping 460 Mb Now, generally speaking, the only driver needed to install and "boot first time" on a SATA only PC is the F6 Sata driver, #1 above, as all the other drivers (defaulting to "standard" ones, like "plain" VGA, or not really needed such as LAN card, etc.) are not "vital" and can be installed later. It is however possible that this "Trinity" stuff behaves differently. So, as Ponch suggested above, what I would try first would be to add ONLY the "F6 drivers" in #1 with nlite and try installing, it will probably take less than one hour time to integrate with nlite, burn the CD and try the install, you could use a CDRW to avoid (in the worst case) a coaster. jaclaz

This: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/120444-how-to-install-windows-from-usb-winsetupfromusb-with-gui/page-24#entry884409 http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?444831-HOWTO-enable-AHCI-mode-after-installing-Windows may also be of interest to you. jaclaz

Good. jaclaz

Two notes (not necessarily useful/solving the issue). 1. Some versions of Nero have been reported in some peculiar cases to create issues, I would personally suggest that you use instead the FREE ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn the .iso, as this will reduce the possibility of a burning issue. Alternatively, you could think of using a USB stick instead of the CD/DVD. 2. JFYI, it is not really "vital" to have SATA drivers integrated (if the BIOS allows IDE Compatibility mode) as it is usually possible to update the OS with SATA/AHCI drivers later (with the OS booted and working). It is not clear (to me at least) how your actual hardware corresponds to the drivers page you mentioned: http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4709#dl the chipset (and SATA) drivers are reported to be "Only for FM2 Trinity APU" (whatever it means), while there is a "plain" F6 driver with no particular note attached. Which hardware do you have? (i.e. is it the one that has "FM2 Trinity APU" or not)? Which driver did you try to slipstream? Finally, at least when installing from USB, it is possible to use a "virtual floppy" to use a F6 floppy image (without needing to integrate it). jaclaz

Inspired by dencorso's: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171174-from-the-ad-section-of-programmers-journal-julago-1990-issue/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171210-what-11-years-means-in-technology/ here is my little contribution : and - not computer, but still technology related - a nice instructional from the 1950's: jaclaz

http://windowsitpro.com/windows-81/windows-81-update-1-leaked-early-whispers-early-bug-reports jaclaz