jaclaz

I don't want to be grumpier than usual, but you came here and asked for some ideas and were given a suggested procedure. Why don't you simply try doing what you were suggested? Mind you I have no way to know if it will help, it is merely what I would do if I were in the same situation you are, but until you try it (and hopefully *something* changes in the startup) there is not much else that you can do. Since you are having issue in the "recognizing hardware", it is only too obvious that the less hardware Windows finds the less probabilities it has to choke on a given item (if the item is not there anymore), but of course you are perfectly free to ignore the given advice and do another thing instead. You could try - but this is a "high risk" procedure - to delete the VMM32.VXD and restore the "base" one from the install CD: http://www.easydesksoftware.com/news/news10.htm jaclaz

A "hint" from an actual "horror story": http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/apple-amazon-mat-honan-hacking/all/ jaclaz

Fixed. Though if you would be not so shy (or even if you are BUT I can talk you into it ) there is the whole world of animated GFXboot, example in the mentioned Christmas theme: http://reboot.pro/topic/15689-ripper-gfx-with-gui-gfxboot-editor/ that could well make use of your capabilities and creativity... jaclaz

I guess the message (whatever it is ) has come through : Something related to XP lifecycle published in 2010 it's hardly news (for XP lovers) jaclaz

Had you actually followed the chain of links to the actual source of the statement, which is seemingly here: http://blogs.windows.com/windows/b/bloggingwindows/archive/2010/07/12/public-beta-now-available-for-windows-7-and-windows-server-2008-r2-service-pack-1.aspx I presume that there won't have been doubts about this. jaclaz

Which could open the way to void the old approach to "lifetime" software licenses and inaugurate the new Saas (Software as a service) era, you will pay a yearly fee and it will be our pleasure to make sure that some new senseless changes to file formats and protocols will be issued periodically, in order to make the life of those still making use of the old paradigm so tough that they will beg us to be allowed to shift to the new model (and pay dearly for it). Of course, in due time, and as soon as the large majority of customers will have shifted to the Saas, we will be able to stop making those changes, fire quite a few of the programmers we now pay to make the senseless changes, and earn even more money. The guys who invented planned obsolescence were kids compared to us..... jaclaz

Good to know you found the solution to your issue . You see, that would be highly logical and consequent IF you assume that MS wants Corporate IT to have BOTH Windows 7 and 8. IF the scope is to kill for good Windows 7 and push the stupid 8, then making the co-existence "easy" starts appearing a lot like ILlogical. And no, in both cases, it is NOT fascinating . jaclaz

Easier would be to forget about them and get either SP2 or SP3 from MS and integrate it. jaclaz

AND, you are now officially the Author of the thingy : jaclaz

But that would have left an unanswered question, is a movie like "Ice Age" considered a masterpiece because of the abilities of (choose one): the director the copywriter/story/plot the animators jaclaz

The only flaw in your line of reasoning being that BOOT.INI belongs to the NT family of OS, XP in this case. A "normal" 98 booting: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking io.sys)->IO.SYS-> Win98 A "normal" XP booting: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR Invoking NTLDR->BOOT.INI->Implied Choice->NTDETECT.COM->XP A "normal" XP+98 dual booting BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR Invoking NTLDR->BOOT.INI->XP Choice->NTDETECT.COM->XP BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR Invoking NTLDR->BOOT.INI->98 Choice->Copy of previous PBR invoking io.sys->IO.SYS ->98 A "normal" 7: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->Implied Choice->7 on first disk A "normal" 7 on second disk: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->Implied Choice->7 on second disk A "normal" 7 on second disk + XP on first disk: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->Implied Choice->7 on second disk BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->"Legacy" Choice->BOOT.INI->Implied Choice->NTDETECT.COM->XP A "normal" 7 on second disk + XP on first disk +98 on first disk: BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->Implied Choice->7 on second disk BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->"Legacy" Choice->BOOT.INI->XP Choice->NTDETECT.COM->XP BIOS->MBR of first disk->Active partition PBR (invoking BOOTMGR)->BOOTMGR->\boot\BCD->"Legacy" Choice->BOOT.INI->98 Choice->Copy of previous PBR invoking io.sys->IO.SYS ->98 Which EXACT error are you getting? Set your Explorer to show hidden and system files. Do these files exist in root of Active partition on first disk ?: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM BOOT.INI IF BOOT.INI exists, open it in Notepad ad paste it's contents on your next post. Open a command prompt in Windows 7. In it run BCDEDIT [ENTER] copy and paste the output on your next post. jaclaz

Just "OK " and not "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" ? Perhaps (?) "OK " in Italian translates to "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" in English. Unlike what people think, Italians do love understatements.... Besides the issues with spelling, before thanking you I had to wait .... Seriously, the result is magnificent, thank you very, very much for your time and dedication . jaclaz

Last one is OK : http://i1196.photobucket.com/albums/aa403/larryb123456/jaclazDUCKEMOTICON_04.gif jaclaz

Additionally (and yes I am old) a sentence like this: http://www.scroogled.com/pdf/Official_Bing_Blogpost_-_A_Campaign_for_Honest_Search.pdf Is ONLY acceptable on a document DATED and SIGNED by Mr.BING. For NO apparent reason : jaclaz

Yep , but if you read it attentively: it says that L would whistle and walk away on the right, i.e. the scene would be about L whistling and walking from left to right and momentarily impeded in doing this because of the "angry" R throwing the brick. The "original" idea is that L is perfectly knowing he did something "naughty" and nothing, not even a brick thrown at him, would stop his path (or "naughty" behaviour). RIght now it seems like L is somehow intimidated but the thrown brick and decides to change his direction. Maybe one could "revert" the entrance of L on the scene (making it enter from the right instead), and have R appear like if he is following L (in order to throw the brick at him). If there are technical difficulties in making the "kilroy" appear a bit earlier, no problem, it was just an idea to "compact" a little the cycle time and size of the .gif. jaclaz

Sure, the document sucks big (as well as the Iomega software and the actual Jazz hardware and - if we are at it - your choosing that crap as backup solution), I find "queer" however that TWO floppies are made calling them "emergency restore startup disk set" if they are not an "emergency restore startup disk set", in the sense that by using them you are not able to perform an emergency restore . If they are a "normal W98 start up disk (x2) set", they are actually ABnormal as a W98 startup disk is a single floppy and not a 2x set. The fact that an "introducing" document "Getting Started" does not enter in the detail of how to use those disks and merely cites them should mean that another document, like a "full manual", exists that details the mentioned floppy disk set and their use. It is well possible that the good Iomega guys just decided to have you waste 2 floppies that are completely unneeded/unuseful, though. jaclaz

Q: Is it acceptable to express an opinion (exception made for one expressing total and unconditional approval, awe and worship) or tentatively suggest an alternate option on anything PROBLEMCHYLD makes in the Service Pack or writes in this (or any other one for that matters) thread? A: No. jaclaz

It's almost perfect . I would "shorten it a little bit, in such a way that L's "eyes" come up from the bottom as soon as R turns towards the right side preparing to exit. Also (though it is nice) there is no real reason why L should "enter" the scene whistling and the end exit it, i.e the scene could open with L already there and at the end "cycle" from directly back to: jaclaz

Well, as often happens OT, but not much: http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/microsofts-anti-google-scroogle-campaign/ jaclaz

I would call that INconvenience , but that doesn't matter. Basically, as I see it, in order to help people that have no idea on how to store documents (and later find them) the good MS guys invented this approach: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd861346.aspx but failed to find a way to easily distinguish such "virtual containers" from real ones, so that anyone actually familiar with "real containers" get utterly confused by this "new" feature. jaclaz

Why don't you just try doing it and observe the results? jaclaz

Yes, OK, but were BSY or LBA0 symptoms? Which EXACT commands did you send to it in the Hyperterminal (or whatever you used)? Yes, the issue here is that your drive behaves "strangely". The MBR CODE is there, exactly where it should be, but the data in it have been "00ed". <- this is "queer", usually either the "whole" MBR is there or it has been completely (not just 16 bytes of it) 00ed. Also, it seems like all the sectors you accessed are all 00's (wiped). I am suspecting that - for *any* reason - the disk has gone in some kind of "loop" and - besides the MBR - only "provides" the same bunch of 00ed sectors , no matter which sector you try to access. Yep, that is the idea, that has a big caveat, though. Provided that the disk is not all 00's, any file that was contiguous should normally be retrieved without issues, whilst any file that was fragmented will most probably result as either corrupted or "partial". The "reference" tool is PHOTOREC (the companion of TESTDISK): http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec (it is not just for photos) No prob. Let's try again to see if some data can actually be read on that disk. Open the disk in Tiny Hexer and search, starting from sector 0 the hex 4D5A90 (which equates to "MZ<nop>", i.e. the header for executable files, one of the most common filetypes on a "system" disk). If you don't find a hit within (say) first 50000 sectors it is likely that there is the "all 00's issues. Are you trying to access the "original, unbricked" disk or the clone of it? (can it be, if the latter, that the cloning failed?) jaclaz

I brought the XP in this thread mainly because I wanted to highlight the "opposite direction" taken with Windows 8. With XP MS "killed young" the Me (and all DOS based OS) in favour of NT based ones and established that the XP OS was "good for all". Now it is saying that: you will have Windows 8 on your "Office PC" you wil have Window 8 on your "Home PC" you will have Windows 8 on your laptop/notebook you will have Windows 8 on the Surface Pro (and possibly on a number of similar tablets) you will have a largely incompatible OS, Windows RT, on the "standard" surface (and possibly on a number of similar tablets) Item #5 won't be fully "integrable" in an "enterprise environment" and it is a completely different product on which most "production tools" won't run (or more exactly, noone, not even them, have provided ports for them, exception made for Office 2013 and it's silly license, that seemingly keeps out of the "deal" anyone in business that has not a volume license or that doesn't want to subscribe to the stupid Office 365). As such, the "current" Surface with Windows RT seems a lot like a "separate branch", not very different from the old DOS vs. NT ones. I have not clear in my mind (actually I am completely not interested to it) whether Windows Phone belong to the "real" Windows 8 branch or to the Windows RT one or it is yet another "branch" with some points in common, not unlike the old CE. jaclaz

Hmmm. I guess you are stuck, then Without partition data, nor bootsector data, nor $MFT the only thing that may work is file-based recovery, but as said I start to suspect that your drive is either "really" "all 00's or *somehow* it went in some kind of "failure" mode and simply outputs 00ed sectors. Try again from the start, describe what happened BEFORE you posted here: What symptoms did the drive have, which exact steps you performed, etc., etc. jaclaz

Yep, I am getting old but am still d@mn faast ! (though this time you were reaaally close after me) For NO apparent reason : jaclaz