jaclaz

I don't think that anywhere outside the USA and Canada K-mart is considered worth a play on words or considered at all. jaclaz

You know, like duel booting: jaclaz

Well, JFYI, I just bought 2 (two) mice (USB) for 3.20 Euro, i.e. 1.60 Euro each, this just one year and a half after having bought two of them for the at the time much higher price of 2.99 each (same make/model[*]). I could afford the projected expense of 1.99 Euro/year/machine (and actually both the old ones are still functioning just fine), so I expect that I will be able to afford easily the lower projected expense of 1.07 Euro/year/machine. I have had in the last, what, 35 years many, many mice, many with "good" brand name such as Logitech or Microsoft, and with the exception of a single (balled) one coming bundled with a computer (an Epson, 486 Dx, circa 1995, the mouse itself is probably a Logitech) that is still going strong, they all died, be it one of the buttons or the laser or whatever, within 3-5 years of use, and they used to cost if I recall correctly, 15-20-25 Euro each. jaclaz [*] no brand/vague model, but same shape and exterior appearance,. from the same e-bay vendor

Maybe useful, maybe not: https://web.archive.org/web/20070209113754/http://www.tbcnet.com/~clive/vcomwinp.html#VXDLIB jaclaz

I think I'll sleep well as always tonight. from: https://blog.0patch.com/2021/01/local-privilege-escalation-0day-in.html jaclaz

I wonder if it could be an issue related to some "default" or "pre-set" settings in the driver (only in the NT 4.00 version) or in the registry that is incompatible with your monitor. Cannot say if there is a way or a program like setres (setres won't likely work in NT 4.00): https://atrandom.iansharpe.com/setres.php to set the resolution and the refresh rate to some basic vga setting, like 640x480@60Hz Good ol' PoweStrip should work on NT 4.00, but cannot say if it could be useful in safe mode: https://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/ps.shtm jaclaz

Yes, but googling for the file name should be possible to find a copy: 77.56_winnt4_english.exe Then it has to be seen if they are actually suitable to your card . jaclaz

Yep, I know. The 77.72 is strangely listed as having been released earlier than the 77.18 and than the 77.56: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/winnt-archive/ maybe they are worth a try . jaclaz

It seems to me like you already pinpointed the issue, those drivers are not good (at least on your board). Have you tried the VBEMP driver? jaclaz

Good. You need to be anyway careful when (if) you need to use partitioning software or similar, as the 0x00 to any of them will likely look like an empty partition slot and thus "free" and usable, with the risk of overwriting the address data. jaclaz

Anecdata: Yesterday came in a telephone technician to fix/replace the central unit of an old (but not exactly "ancient", this particular one was installed 2004 or so and was in production until 2014 or so) telephone switchbox/PBX, manufacturer Bosch/Tenovis/Avaya . The thingy is programmed/configured via a serial through a proprietary configuration software. The technician had a (high end) HP notebook running Windows 10 that was used only to run an XP virtual machine in which the Avaya software ran. He told me that he has also a 7 VM on the same netbook because other proprietary software was too new for XP, ran in 7 just fine, but for some reason didn't run well directly in 10. So basically he had this (I repeat, very high end) powerful machine running 10 only to be able to run either XP or 7 in virtual machines. jaclaz

Foreword: I am notoriously cheap (besides old and grumpy). The story: I was gifted a couple (first one and a few months later the second) of non-working ASUS EEE PC model 1201T. both machines, with very little signs on wear on the exterior, clearly not excessively used/abused. showed the same symptom, on power on five leds (more specifically the one of the on/off button on top right, the one of the touchpad on/off button on top left and three on the bottom right, i.e. power, disk and wi-fi) were on, solid blue, the fan spinned, you could hear/sense the hd spinning BUT completely blank/black screen and no video signal on external monitor from the VGA connector. When I got the first one I thought (from previous experience with older laptops) that the video card/GPU was fried and set it aside, intending to later maybe salvage the hard disk. When I got the second one, I grew suspicious, two identical machines with the exact same issue? A few quick searches provided not any confirmation about the video card/GPU issue being common, but a more accurate search led me to this video by a nice Brazilian guy (which I have to thank a lot , not only for the specific solution but also for the idea of wrapping the upper part of the laptop to avoid scratches and fingerprints, simple and effective) : so the whole issue is that if the CMOS battery is exhausted the computer won't boot to BIOS, easily (and cheaply) solved on both machines. Since the idea, now that the machines worked, was to make them as functional as possible, I got two SATA SSD's (Crucial BX500 240 GB, got them for around 35 Euro each). Here came the second issue, the original disk inside the machines is 250 GB in size (one had a WD, the other a Seagate), so I couldn't do a 1:1 clone, and had to delve a little deeper to understand how the stuff (F9 recovery partition and boot booster) worked. Half to three quarters (or more) of the information you can find online about these two features is either partial, incorrect or plainly wrong. The partition table contains 4 entries: #0 Normal type 0x07 NTFS partition, active, around 100 GB in size, let's call it "system and boot" #1 Normal type 0x07 NTFS partition, around 113 GB in size (the exact size of this partition was slightly different on the two disks), let's call it "data" #2 Hidden type 0x1B FAT 32 partition, 10 GB in size (this is the recovery partition, containing a WinRE wim and a couple other .wims). let's call it "recovery" #3 "Queer" type 0xEF partition 17.5 MB in size, let's call it boot booster after the fourth partition there were "a bunch" of unused sectors. The first two partitions are perfectly normal. The third one is also pretty much normal, set aside the "hidden" (obtained by adding 0x10 to the normal value) ID. The last one is "queer". The Windows (and most info on the Internet) calls it an "EFI partition", though this is completely wrong, it has nothing to do with EFI or UEFI, the good Asus guys simply used this "EF" id to leave on the disk some (17.5 MB in my case, but I have read about other models using different sizes) some "reserved" space to store the *whatever* data is used to "boost" the boot time. When you go into the BIOS, IF a partition with ID 0xEF is found, then an option to Enable or Disable Boot booster appears, if there is not this partition the option disappears. From what I understand in these 17.5 MB some info on the specific machine and possibly about its configuration are pre-saved so that they need not to be "discovered" during the BIOS POST, shaving off a few seconds in booting time, surely this info is recreated when you enable the boot booster. The instruction/manual says that you need to first make sure that Boot booster is disabled, and then you can use F9 at boot time to start the WinRE (and thus use the factory reset/recovery). It is clear (now) that most of the magic is done NOT in the MBR code (as it is the "standard" Windows 7 one), unlike other OEM's, like, as an example, HP, see: https://msfn.org/board/topic/131620-hp-notebook-the-recovery-partition-could-not-be-found/ And I found some small evidence (which I had no occasion to actually test) that the functionality of F9 can be restored by making the 0x01B partitition active and (possibly? ) not hidden (i.e. 0x0B) and then, when the WinRE boots and you are given the option to recovery or abort, even if you select abort the partitions are "reset", i.e. first one is made active and the third one is (possibly? ) changed to 0x1B: https://www.forum-des-portables-asus.fr/forums/threads/touche-f9-ne-permet-plus-dacceder-a-la-partition-recovery.5307/ https://www.forum-des-portables-asus.fr/forums/threads/touche-f9-ne-permet-plus-dacceder-a-la-partition-recovery.5307/page-2#post-43132 Anyway, "my" F9 was working on the original hard disk(s), so I simply made some calculation (with the exact size of my SSD's) so that I had: #0 a clean NTFS volume, active the same exact size as the original #1 a clean NTFS volume, the exact size depending on the following #2 a clone of the 10 GB recovery partitions with the "sectors before" adjusted to reflect the new position[1] #3 only the EF entry in the MBR for the same size (17.5 MB) as the original 1 (one) excess sector after. Inserted the new SSD, at next boot: 1) disabled Boot Booster 2) pressed F9 3) chose to recovery and everything was well. Then I had some troubles to update to SP1 and a few other packages in order to be able to use Windows Update (which took forever), but this is another story. Conclusion: I hope that someone in a same or similar situation can find something of use from this report. The moral of the story (if there is one ) is: NEVER, and I mean NEVER, give up! jaclaz [1] for the record, I had some initial isssues with the PBR (and its copy, FAT32 stores a copy on sector 6) as (in the original volume) they were different, evidently the good ASUS guys used some tools that changed something (Root Directory cluster) after the initial format without updating the bootsector backup, and my good, invaluable, DMDE noticed it, in the end I verified that the "main" PBR was good and cloned it on sector 6

Only to confirm your impression, but on the very opposite side of the spectrum (low power machines, where a comparison is more likely to show noticeable differences). I just got two extremely el-cheapo (and old but in themselves "good enough") netbooks, identical, Asus EEE PC 12.1" 1201T (a not-so-common model sporting an AMD MV-40 processor). These machines are (were) intended as "pure" netbooks, i.e. minimal browsing and "normal" everyday activities in a rather light and portable format with a several hours lasting battery. Put on them both the max RAM (2 GB) and new 240 GB SSD drives. On the first I restored (from recovery partition) the original OS (Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit), which I then updated to SP1 and via Windows Update to an as much "current" situation as possible. On the second I experimented an install of Windows 10 home (last release 2020, directly from MS original iso). I won't detail the amount of troubles I had to actually install the stupid Windows 10, as it would become a rant, but trust me it wasn't easy (on the other hand in the Windows 7 one having to deal with Windows Update (non)response times has been as well really trying) Anyway, after having run them both a few hours and having let them "settle", I briefly tested the two PC's side by side (literally). Quick sum up: 1) booting times: Windows 7 is seemingly a tadbit slower to get to the desktop, but Windows 10 is "faking", if I count the time until the Start button responds, W7 is faster 2) CPU usage: Windows 7 uses far less CPU at rest (including running in the background some of the built-in ASUS tools), W10 has a sh**tload of processes eating CPU time 3) RAM usage; Windows 7 at rest is around 532 MB, W10 at rest is around 1.1 GB (more than double) Right now I am re-setting/re-installing the second netbook to Windows 7, and make it identical to the first one. jaclaz

Only as a side-side note, System Explorer: http://systemexplorer.net/ seems like not that bad (and it can show processes full paths, among many other things) jaclaz

Let's see if I can use one of my (in)famous book comparison. There is a book of - say - 100 pages total, on which first page (page at offset 0) there is an index, like this: if you go to page 90 you find a page: So you have: total 100 pages, Now, this exact same book could be instead be made as follows, on 1st page (page at offset 0): if you go to page 90 you find a page: It is clear that the contents, in both cases, is in the same place, i.e. Chapter 1 on pages 1-89 and Appendix A on pages 91-99, the only difference is that they are indexed differently. Now, this same book printed by Microsoft Press in 2005 would be: and on page 153: which can as well be re-indexed as: (BTW in the second edition, pubished in 2007, Microsoft Press would insert 2047 Blank pages instead of 62) Hope this clears a bit more the matter. jaclaz

Again: 1) it is due to the original partitioning, the cloning is "innocent" 2) it can be (could have been) easily fixed I tried explaining the basics, if you had questions you could have asked them . Anyway: 1) the entry in the MBR is for the extents of the extended partition 2) normally the simplest way out would be to enlarge the extents of the extended partition (leaving the volume inside it as is) and later expand the volume 3) BUT in a dual-boot with XP and Windows 7 having a logical volume inside extended is not safe 4) hence it is advised to convert the logical volume to primary, since you don't need/want to ue any other MBR slot 5) this consists essentially in copying 16 bytes from the EMBR to the MBR, change the 4 byte Start LBA value adding the offset to the EMBR and (optionally) correct the "sectors before" in the PBR jaclaz

@Areba21 What you essentially want (IMHO) is a "scrambler", i.e. a bike with a lowish seat/baricentre and large handlebar, very manageable for a new driver, that runs smoothly on road but that can do even some light off road or dirt track . The original Ducati Scrambler (to give you an idea): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducati_Scrambler The current models (1100) are stupidly powerful, the 800 is already more than enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducati_Scrambler_(2015) the 400 is a de-powered version that would suit you anyway, no idea if these are common/affordable in CA. But there must be "similar" models from other manufacturers. jaclaz

The MBR contains (besides BIOS boot code) a "structure" called partition table. Partition addresses are written to it. There are 4 "slots" or "entries" possible in it. Primary partitions addresses are written there "directly". Extended partition address (type 0x05 or 0x0F) point to another sector, the EMBR that still has 4 slots but of which only 2 are ever used: #0 the address of the first logical volume inside extended #1 the address of the next (E)MBR Any partition (primary or extended) on any disk have addresses in the MBR, which is thus ALWAYS relevant, no matter if system or data only physical drive or partition. Now, OS up to XP aligned partitions to cylinder/head (in practice multiples of 255*63) and there is a 63 sectors offset between EMBR and logical volumes. OS Vista and later aligned partitions to MB (2048 sectors) and there is the same 2048 sectors offset between EMBR and logical volumes. IF this latter is in use, Disk Management in XP may corrupt the EMBR's. It is your disk and your data, but before giving advice, I would like to know exactly the current situation. JFYI, volumes are "colour coded": dark blue = volume inside primary light blue = volume inside extended black = unused space And the green border is around the extended partition. In the default view of Disk Manager (which "scales" the graphic proportionally to the sizes) it is sometimes difficult to see if there is unused space past the last logical volume (but still inside the extended) there is the alternate view in Disk Manager (under View->Settings) that allows to have each "item" be the same size (besides allowing changing the default colours). jaclaz

Very good . As a side-side note, since you mentioned .iso's, no idea if it applies to your nice batch, but doing a dashun9 test is IMHO not that bad an idea: https://msfn.org/board/topic/182116-winsetupfromusb-problem-installing-xp-on-legacy-system/?tab=comments#comment-1191406 jaclaz

Well, if you want, I can tell you how to fix the issue without having to move/copy delete anything. Basically all is needed is to "transform" the currently only volume inside extended into a primary partition. It can be done manually with *any* hex/disk editor (suggested is Tiny Hexer) or (still manually but easier, calculations are automatic) via grub4dos. Still, I would like to see the log/report I asked you for before anything else. jaclaz

Set the multimeter to V DC (the "=" symbol), likely you have a range selection *like* 2-20 V, or anyway select the lower V = selection that is at the higher end bigger than 12 V, then use the probes on Yellow and Black wires. Cables on ATX power supplies are colour coded, they are all the same, anyway this is the specific supernova detail: https://pc-mods.com/blogs/psu-pinout-repository/evga-psu-supernova-cables-pinout You will need a short piece of wire or a paper clip between the Green and *any* black to power on the PSU. Seemingly however some newish PSU's (including EVGA ones) use NOT colour coded cable so you will need to go by place/number on the connector, see: BUT, you won't get a definitive result , as very often a faulty PSU still provides the voltage without load, but it doesn't provide enough current, so testing only the voltage is only part of the issue. You would be better served by a specific/dedicated ATX PSU tester (you can find one of them for anything between 5 and 30 bucks, but that would be (IMHO) wasted money, unless you happen to do many repair/checks. I.e. if I were you I would get an el-cheapo (but not el-cheapest, no-name), ATX PSU 500-600 W to keep as spare and for testing, you will be spending anything between 10 and 30 dollars, i.e. roughly the same as the tester. jaclaz

I don't think that the USB connection is involved, but it may. If this is confirmed, it depends of course on the original partitioning on the 160GB HDD. It is pretty much binary, either something is a clone, or it isn't. Long discussion on the term "clone" (vs. "image", "backup", etc.: If you made a sector by sector copy, it is a clone, i,e. an exact copy. The "normal" way to partition disks was (historically) to have: 1 primary partition 1 extended partition with inside it *any number* of logical volumes because that was what DOS Fdisk would only allow. Later systems allowed the creation of more than 1 primary partition, but - generically speaking - the 1 primary + 1 extended is still very common, as there are only 4 slots in the MBR partition table, it means either max 4 primaries or max 3 primaries+1 extended (with as many volumes as needed in it). What I recommend you, should you have created the extended partition in Windows 7, is to NOT use ANYMORE the Windows XP disk manager on that disk, as even an unrelated change done through it may corrupt the extended partition (actually the volumes inside it), JFYI: http://reboot.pro/topic/9897-vistawin7-versus-xp-partitioning-issue/ "lost" volumes due to this bug can be recovered manually, should this happen, but while doable there is not a magic tool that does the recovery automatically. jaclaz

WHICH topic? This one? jaclaz

What you report is "strange", The issue may be that your "second partition" is NOT a partition but rather a logical volume inside extended. If I recall correctly the built in disk management/diskpart has provisions to extend primary partitions/voumes, but not the extended partition (that contains the logical volume). Check the content of the MBR, you can use *any* suitable tool showing its contents, if you don't have any handy, simplest would be to get MBRscan: https://www.raymond.cc/blog/5-free-tools-to-backup-and-restore-master-boot-record-mbr/2/ https://tools.security-x.fr/ Scan Report and you attach the MBRscan.log to your next post. If this is the case, it is possible to manually "convert" the logical volume to primary (if you are game for it). jaclaz

You have done nothing to be forgiven for , a glitch is a glitch , but trying to understand what is causing it might still be interesting, the fact that I only experience the glitch on posts by two people should mean that these two people's browsers, or the stupid board software adds. only in combination with these two people's browsers, for *some reasons*, *something* that causes the glitch. You'll have to concur that it is an "odd" kind of glitch. But please, do not play moderator with me, rest assured I (usually) know what is polite and (definitely) what is against the rules, a moderator will be able - if considered needed - to move our off-topic posts to a new thread, and I know what dencorso said, thank you. jaclaz