jaclaz

Good , you choose to "activate by phone", call MS, explain the issue and they will issue a new activation for you: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=242370 But still, this has nothing to do with having Windows XP pre-activated (or needng no activation) on *any* computer. jaclaz

I would venture to say that it is an affirmation by omission. They simply miss millions of telemetry feeds (those of the people that DID NOT buy or use Windows 8.x) and the consequent digital silence is deafening. jaclaz

Actually (and strangely enough ) the title is somehow linguistically accurate. Malediction - which has now more commonly the meaning of "curse" has originally also the meaning of "slander", and in this less used meaning it applies perfectly: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=malediction Joyvalle has a *somehow* failing hard disk that happens to be a Seagate 7200.11 and, knowing the extremely bad fame that this model has gained, assumed that the disk was "bricked", affected by either BSY or LBA0 (the known issues that affect at least a specific model/period of production/version of firmware) and posted on the huge mega-thread about those issues: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/?p=1066364 and was invited to start a new separate thread. A suitable title could be : but more seriously, it could be: jaclaz

I don't know. At the time you posted a (blacklisted) VLK key was not in the OP, there was still a (teeny-tiny) possibility that it was a legitimate kind of request, even if it did not sound like that. The Heart of Gold could have traveled six or seven solar system feeding it to the improbability drive, but still it existed . But the Mythbusters approach is usually sound: jaclaz

Good, start by providing a copy of the MBR (first absolute sector of the disk). A suitable tool (for the not-so-avanced user) is HdHacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ under Windows 7 you will probably need to run it as Administrator. Check which disk number the affected disk has in Disk Management (like Disk 0, Disk 1, etc. Disk n) In Hdhacker you want to select "Physical Drive (MBR)", n, then "First Sector (MBR)", "Number of continuous sectors to read" = 1 Then press button "Read sector from disk" Then press button "Save sector to file" Choose a location and filename and save the file. Then compress it to a zip archive and either attach the .zip to your next post or upload it *somewhere* and provide a link to it. jaclaz

Which part in Rule #1a: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?app=forums&module=extras&section=boardrules are you having troubles understanding? A non-enterprise (or if you prefer non-VLK) original CD needs activation or needs to be "cracked" (and this won't be discussed here). jaclaz

If you can see the disk drive in the BIOS but it is shows as 0 in size then it is the LBA0 problem. <- this is NOT your case If you cannot see the disk drive in BIOS then it is possible that it is the BSY problem. <- this is probably your case READ the read-me-first (which is what you should READ FIRST): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/143880-seagate-barracuda-720011-read-me-first/ FORGET about the first post on this thread and READ instead the recommended guide by CarterinCanada: http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html If you cannot understand what is written in the two given above resource, as said, try asking for help to a friend of relative with some more familiarity with English, this is your actual problem! jaclaz

@TomasMascinskas You have to understand that there are three "levels" when it comes to a disk drive: Real physical level (this is what the BIOS can see and that in your case is OK) Physical level (or RAW device) which is what Disk Management uses to access the device Logical level (what Explorer or other file manager will use ONCE the Disk Manager above will have created a valid logical structure, i.e. partitions/volumes and filesystems on them)A bricked disk will not be accessed correctly at level #1 above and consequently it won't be available at the other two ones. An unbricked disk will be accessible at level #1 and at level #2 above but not necessarily at level #3 as, for a number of reasons its logical structure may have been corrupted. Your disk is detected correctly in the BIOS , and as such your disk is NOT "bricked" (anymore) , BUT evidently the logical structure on it has been damaged . Start a NEW thread and we will see if it is possible to repair/recover the logical structure of the disk or if at least file-based recovery is possible. In more detail, the partitioning of the disk is still OK (your disk management does see a single partition on it) BUT NO valid filesystem is recognised by the Windows and as such a drive letter CANNOT be assigned to it. jaclaz

Kostas275, really, it is not easy to understand your question. What you wrote is not English. It sounds like English, i.e. you are putting together English words, but the result cannot be understood. It is extremely important that you make understandable questions and that you understand completely the answers as an even minimal mistake may make the disk drive unrecoverable. Try writing in Greek simple sentences and using Google translate, it often produces a good enough result: http://translate.google.com/ remember, simple sentences Πραγματικά, δεν είναι εύκολο να καταλάβει την ερώτησή σας. Αυτό που έγραψε δεν είναι η αγγλική. Ακούγεται σαν αγγλικά, δηλαδή βάζετε μαζί αγγλικές λέξεις, αλλά το αποτέλεσμα δεν μπορεί να γίνει κατανοητή. Είναι εξαιρετικά σημαντικό ότι κάνετε εύλογα ερωτήματα και ότι έχετε κατανοήσει πλήρως τις απαντήσεις ως μια έστω και ελάχιστη λάθος μπορεί να κάνει το δίσκο ανεπανόρθωτο. Προσπαθήστε να γράψετε στα ελληνικά απλές προτάσεις και χρησιμοποιώντας το Google μεταφράζει, θα παράγει συχνά ένα αρκετά καλό αποτέλεσμα: http://translate.google.com/ θυμηθείτε, απλές προτάσεις jaclaz

Strangely ON Topic : jaclaz

That's good. You are very welcome to disagree, either slightly or largely. What you cannot do is to misrepresent the scope and the by now recognized usefulness of the present thread and more generally indirectly depict the few people (like yours truly ) that in these years have contributed to allow thousands of people to recover their data as a bunch of reckless loons senselessly advising people to apply this cure to *any* illness . The fact that a number of people do not take the time to READ ATTENTIVELY the provided resources and fail to consider attentively whether attempting this fix is a good or bad choice is another thing and is unfortunately outside the possibilities of a technical forum, (can't cure stupid ), if I had 5 bucks for each user that failed to READ and attempted a PCB swap: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/152693-st9160411as-cant-initialize-because-of-io-device-error#entry973111 http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/150215-dont-even-think-of-swapping-pcbs-on-720011/ I would be, if not a rich man, much more well off. Example, in layman's terms: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/128807-the-solution-for-seagate-720011-hdds/page-169#entry1004448 And, JFYl, a Seagate which was dropped will very likely, BEFORE showing a BSY, click a number of times (ten or eleven or twelve, cannot remember exactly) and then spin down (and same often happens for a failed head). jaclaz

No. If you cannot write correctly 7200.11 it is inconceivable that you can replicate the procedure accurately enough. Seriously , yes , it is possible that your disk is affected by the BSY problem, but maybe you will need some assistance from a friend or relative more familiar with English, in order to read and properly understand the READ-ME-FIRST: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/143880-seagate-barracuda-720011-read-me-first/ and the recommended guide: http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html It is important to make sure that the symptoms are those of either the BSY or LBA0 known issue and to understand fully and replicate EXACTLY the procedure. Or maybe you can try asking for help here: http://www.insomnia.gr/topic/316249-πρόβλημα-με-seagate-barracuda-st3500320as/ jaclaz

, but do not drink over the normal limit . jaclaz P.S.: @bigmuscle If I were you I would make another site where people can actually purchase a "license to whine about the software", something like 3 € per whining ticket and 9 € to buy a set of 5 whining tickets, you seemingly would get richer through that. For NO apparent reason :

Don't worry about the acronyms, it is just my "personal war" agaisnt their use (and abuse), though F.T.B. for Fire Control Technician is an interesting twist: http://www.acronymfinder.com/Fire-Control-Technician-Ballistic-(US-DoD)-(FTB).html as anywhere else that would make FCT Sure , I understand what you were trying to do, but that's one of the occasions when an image is worth a thousand words : jaclaz

Good , then it is a possible bug that - once brought to the attention of JFX - is likely to be easily reproducible and solvable. jaclaz

Care to explain? Do you mean that bootsect.exe /NT52 does not produce a PBR/VBR invoking NTLDR? jaclaz P.S.: In any case one can download the bootice from it's own homesite: http://bbs.ipauly.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2

No. The example does not apply. The steering wheel has worked for more than 100 years as a way to control direction of a wheeled vehicle, BUT the actual first cars did have a "control stick". The control stick has worked for more than, what, 75 years as a way to control helicopters (but also excavators and other ground vehicles). BOTH solutions have proved over the years to be very good at what they are supposed to do. There are no particular issues, costs aside, to make cars with control sticks (provided that one can manage to get the right sensibility and feedback), as the control stick is a known good alternative to both the steering wheels and the various pedals, though of course it would take some time to get people used to it. It could be an evolution in the way cars are controlled. A good argument in favour of using joysticks in cars is increased safety for the driver in case of accident (article about some old research on the matter): http://www.saabsunited.com/2009/11/the-saab-9000-drive-by-wire-joystick-project.html and quite fresh news, drive-by-wire (while still using at the moment a steering wheel) is becoming reality: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/05/al_drivebywire/ BUT here we are substituting a "known to be working" and very accurate/precise set of "commands" (keyboard and mouse) with something that is: slower less accurate ergonomically worse in most situations (with the exception of tiny, hand-held devices, like phones and tablets, where you are NOT supposed to do "real work")It would be more like making new cars replacing hydraulic disc brakes: http://visual.merriam-webster.com/images/transport-machinery/road-transport/brakes/disc-brake_1.jpg with wheelchair brakes: http://visual.merriam-webster.com/images/society/health/wheelchair.jpg jaclaz

ET? FTB? https://www.ftb.ca.gov/ Check the actual academic degrees and certifications people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates got, they did *somehow* manage to start a business or two even without them. Mind you I am not saying that it is not good to have certifications and degrees (quite the contrary), I am saying that they are an often overestimated part of what concurs to people's capability and will to "do a good job", they are very good things to have , but not enough by themselves. jaclaz

No. "Certified" means "I have been trained and I managed to get judged capable of doing what I was trained for". (nothing more, nothing less). From this to extrapolate that "I know what I am doing" and "you can trust me to do a good job" there is an abyss. Just go to some more official MS forum and check what MVP's and the like tell poor, innocent people. A few examples: intelligent+honest+properly trained or knowledgeable enough+passes certification=Certified AND knowing what I am doing AND you can trust me to do a good job stupid+dishonest+properly trained or knowledgeable enough+passes certification=Certified AND knowing what I am doing BUT NOT necessarily you can trust me to do a good job Intelligent+honest+properly trained or knowledgeable enough= knowing what I am doing AND you can trust me to do a good job BUT NOT certified stupid+honest+passes certification=Certified BUT NOT knowing what I am doing AND NOT necessarily you can trust me to do a good job etc.. jaclaz

Signed! jaclaz

In your opinion. Now, with all due respect, in my own opinion, I'm good for at least the next 10 years: yesterday I've activated my 6th XP Pro SP3 x86 machine (two of which are also bootable into 98SE). MS will stop supporting XP next April... well, it can do that, all right. Myself, I couldn't care less whether it actually does it, or backs off in the last moment. I don't know. I really don't think that running an unsuported OS sounds safe. And I'll say it again. I think comparing the running of Windows XP with Windows 9x/ME unsupported is foolish. 9x/ME's kernel is way simpler than Windows NT's, which still exists in Vista, 7 and 8. So an attacker of those systems can get to XP as well. So you shouldn't use 9x/ME's security through obscurity as a precedent for how things my go with XP. I sense a lot of folks think that Microsoft is out to screw with people on Windows Updates. Somehow they believe Microsoft is undermining the system. I really don't think Microsoft is out to mess with it's own products. JFYI I run a few machines with "outdated" (and out of support) OS since years: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/158823-why-you-should-avoid-buying-windows-8/?p=1019348 Now, is it "smart"? To some extents it is, the stupid machines use the stupid OS they run to do stupid things (like all the things PC's do), in exactly the SAME stupid way they stupidly did that when the respective OS's were mainstream, and they do that in what would be considered an insanely low-powered (as BOTH processing power AND mains power consumption goes). But of course those machines are not intended to stupidly do the new stupid things like (say) Silverlight or HTML5 sites expect, so it is not a good idea for people wanting to have "recent" software on these "oldish" OS's. Some "statistics" (number of BSOD's/issues did not change since this was posted): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/155290-windows-8-deeper-impressions/page-56#entry1022946 Now, try guessing on which of those 4 machines I once got a virus? Yes, it was the XP one, and it happened (obviously) when the OS was fully supported, in 2009, and due to "local" compromising (infected USB stick). Now, please, try stating that comparing running unsupported XP to running unsupported NT 4.00/Win2K is foolish, go ahead, make my day. jaclaz

And your point is? It is clearly stated in several places, including the READ-ME-FIRST how the instructions and the assistance provided here is ONLY related to two definite errors, the "LBA0" and the "BSY" caused by a single, definite issue in firmware (log counter). It is NEVER suggested to apply the "fix" if the symptoms are not correspondent to the above. BUT a number of people, that had nothing to lose, went ahead and applied the same "fix" to slightly different symptoms, and some of them had their disks revived. <- this plainly means that the "fix" works also for some disks affected by different issues. Quick explanation: A. disk bricked B. data on it not worth between US$ 500 and US$ 1,000 (typical figures that professionals are going to charge for recovering the data) or C. having not the financial possibility to spend said amount of money. A+B=0 (nothing to lose) A+C=0 (nothing to lose) Noone in it's right mind, whenever the data is actually worth that kind of money, will even think to risk to lose the data forever, but all the rest can well fork from a handful of bucks and attempt (if the symptoms are the correspondent ones or even if they are not) to apply the provided routines. They won't be anyway in a "worse" situation, and they won't anyway spend hundreds of dollars on the stupid thingy, they had lost their data before the failed attempt and they will have them lost after it. jaclaz

To be fair , the original answer seems to me if not appropriate, corresponding to the question: To me any sounds a lot like BOTH a Dell and a HP .... jaclaz

That is a "complication" . So, there is probably an underlying "physical" error(s) on the disk that caused the filesystem corruption. Time to go back to Linux and try imaging again using ddrescue. It is important that you run ddrescue with a LOG, see the manual: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/manual/ddrescue_manual.html The program will attempt to read even normally not readable areas, but first thing it will save all the "plainly readable", logging which areas were not read, and try them "later" (or at next run). jaclaz

A small confirmation . Compare the "How to play" here: http://us.battroborg.com/#content/en/howto.html with this original Commercial: You might notice how very little relevance is given to the need for syncing nor any warning is present about possible interferences. jaclaz