jaclaz

Hmmm. Which errors? Using grub4dos/grldr how (EXACTLY)? Using grub4dos/grldr which (EXACT) version? Why #3 is not an option? Why not trying the 5th (or maybe 5th and 6th) way? jaclaz

Yes/No. http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html A good idea would have been to SEARCH first: MAKE SURE you are in either BSY or LBA0 and if not, start a new thread. Does the disk spin? (normally when powered up) If it does, the should mean that the board and hard disk contacts is not good or ot good enough, completely detach board clean contacts and try again: jaclaz

Being a little picky, but it would be more correct to say something like; "BOOTMGR and BOOTMGR.EXE are actually the same file, but the first has some added code (16-bit) to make it a suitable local boot target" Yep , my bad I got it the "other way round" . jaclaz

Hmmm. .bin says "little". Which program made the file? It is "queer" that the error is about "bad sectors". Which OS are you running (apart W98) or can you run? Where is (physically) the .bin file saved? It is not at all clear (to me at least) if the error is in the .bin file, in the media on which it is or in the way the two mentioned tools attempt to extract the .avi from the .bin. I would try to mount the .bin in a Virtual CD and then copy from it with a tool like Unstoppable Copier (or similar). Then I would throw at them files every tool around +1, another one: http://www.risingresearch.com/en/dvr/ Also Virtualdub has more options that you (or myself) will ever be able to understand and use, I seem to remember that I managed more than once to create "good chunks" from otherwise corrupted videos, but cannot remember the details and most probably it depends by a number of factors like codec, etc. or maybe try VirtualdubMod: http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/repair_broken_or_corrupt_avi_files.cfm jaclaz

BOOTMGR and BOOTMGR.EXE are actually the "same" file BUT the second has some added code to make it a suitable "pxe" target. EDIT: BUT the first has some added code (16 bit) to make it a "local boot" target. EXACTLY like it was in the good ol'days with SETUPLDR and SETUPLDR.EXE, see: http://reboot.pro/5900/ http://reboot.pro/4952/#entry40701 It seems to me like you pinned down exactly the problem, i.e. the way BOOTGR.EXE looks for the BCD, and right now it seems to me like there are only the metioned ways out: use an original WDS server using the workaround you found http://www.0xf8.org/2012/04/the-30-second-delay-in-booting-windows-pes-pxeboot-com-via-pxelinux/ using an alternate WDS server (suggested but UNtested) using an alternate loader from pxelinux (suggested but UNtested) Another possibility (also to be tested) is here: http://reboot.pro/1656/ http://www.ultimatedeployment.org/win7pxelinux1.html jaclaz

The grown image, the NTFS filesystem driver is likely to throw errors on a "less-than-declared-size" one. The "grown" image should mount, the only issue being (hopefully) the backup of the bootsector, which shouldn't be checked by the NTFS filesystem driver when mounting . It is very possible that - for any reason - the partial image that you have is not an image of the first 134 or so Gb of the original hard disk (and consequently the "grown" image is "invalid") or that somehow the $MFT is "misplaced" in the "grown" image or that - again for *any* reason the making of the sparse file or the dd-ing to it of the partial image produced an invalid image. How EXACTLY did you create the "grown" image? Please list EXACTLY, in DETAIL, EACH and EVERY step you performed to make that image. jaclaz

Many of the devices you listed are OK. Particularly those based on the Max 3232 and on the PL2303 chips. This one definitely is NOT. http://www.ebay.com/itm/280942999018?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649 The CA-42 maybe or maybe not. This one is a USB to serial (nothing to do with TTL): http://www.ebay.com/itm/B-USB-2-0-SERIAL-RS232-DB9-9-PIN-ADAPTER-CABLE-PDA-/160523344872?pt=US_Parallel_Serial_PS_2_Cables_Adapters&hash=item255fefdbe8 Yes, CTRL+Z means : Please review the suggested guide by CarterinCanada: http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html ALL of it but particularly the part titled "The Real Deal - Fixing the Drive" AND the READ-ME-FIRST (which contains more details about the TTL level that maxes at 3.3 V and the TTL level that maxes out at 5 V (both have nothing to do with the actual 3.3V or 5V DC or VCC at which the thingy might be powered and/or from which power can be drawn): jaclaz

Do the .avi's play in VirtualDub? http://www.virtualdub.org/ jaclaz

Good. Wait a minute, are you still using the "resulting" image as ddrescue created it, or did you "grow" it to it's full size (creating a new file with mksparse and dd-ing to it the image)? jaclaz

WHAT is your "main" folder? WHAT is your destination folder? WHICH OS is that? Xcopy is supposed to be eXact COPY, it misses many "sync" functionality. Robocopy or Strarc: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/ may be more suited. BUT is what you are trying to do that is not clear to me, as XCOPY does have the /U switch: http://ss64.com/nt/xcopy.html /U Copy only files that already exist in destination. that may be what you are after jaclaz

NO. You missed the "essence", besides breaking, the App MUST be ugly and less convenient/more difficult to use (being senselessly linked to heaps of unneeded services/dependencies/subsytems/whatever is instead optional). jaclaz

It's crystal clear to me. Most probably because I use carpenter's comparisons. Back to the Apps, it's easy: Can it break/malfunction? If Yes it's Windows. (If No, it's DOS ) If you replied Yes to the above: Can it break/malfunction, be ugly and more diifcult to use? If Yes it's Windows 8 Windows Store App. If you replied Yes to the above: Can it break/malfunction, be ugly, more difficult to use, linked senselessly to different services/environments AND will actually break? If Yes, it's Windows 8 Windows Modern App jaclaz

Naah, it works allright here, maybe a glitch in the matrix? (I also checked, it needs not to be logged in) OOPS my bad, had it cached, you are right it's in a "members only" section. jaclaz

On the image (I mean if the dmde can access the $MFT entries of the image, as I seem to understand, asked you but had no specific answer about). The image must be mounted to a drive letter (using a virtual disk driver) in order to let getfilextents work. <- Sorry I omitted this piece of info. Possibly the most easy to use one (and "good enough" for the task) could be IMDISK: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/ http://reboot.pro/forum/59/ See if it can mount the image to a drive letter. jaclaz

You are in a "peculiar" situation. The number of sectors actually seen for \\.\PhysicalDrive1 is 268,435,455 that nicely corresponds to 137,438,952,960 bytes. I.e., for *any* reason the disk drive "declares itself" as being that size in TOTAL. What I would do is to image it "as is" with DatarescueDD. Then I would try to recover the data that actually was in this "initial" 137 Gb. The reason WHY could be almost *anything*, but I seem to remember to have read of disks behaving similar to this, I will have a look if I can find any related info. To proceed, you need a disk with at least 500+140 Gb. A 640 Gb disk is probably enough , but it's a bit "tight", best idea could be another 500 Gb hard disk + some 140/150 Gb free on another disk. The general idea is: image the disk to a roughly 137 Gb image with DatarescueDD restore the image to a "new" 500 Gb disk fix the filesystem of the biggish NTFS partition and have back access to (hopefully) all the data physically residing on the first 137 GB Once done that we will see if there is some form of "user doable" fix. Please post some more info Which exact hard disk model is it? Which exact laptop is it? How/when did it happen? How are you accessing the disk currently? <- please not that IF you are using a USB to SATA or USB to IDE adapter or "external case", some (older ones) will "cut-off" at the 28 bit LBA address (strangely similar to 137 Gb ) jaclaz

But don't overdo it , JFYI, last time we had some fun with quote pyramids: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Quote%20Pyramid the Admin of the (other) Board disabled them jaclaz

And again you have three possibilities: "main" Hardware (motherboard CPU, etc.) that however tests OK with memtest+ "specific" Hardware (hard disk controller, hard disk drive, hard disk cables) Software (filesystem, actual files corrupted, botched install) The suggested troubleshooting way (that you partially already took using memtest+) is to test the motherboard with ANOTHER OS loaded form ANOTHER MEDIA (CD/DVD or USB). If you insist on keeping the three listed items "together" you will never be able to find out which is which is not by sheer luck . jaclaz

Which OS? See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329903 This sounds more like an issue with the OS (actually with the hard disk or the filesystem on it) than anything else. This woud explain nicely why no errors are found through memtest86+ testing. The POST is however BEFORE NTLDR (or anything OS related) comes into play. You may want to use a Live CD (*any* Linux distro or Windows based PE would do) and test the PC "diskless" (yes, physically detaching the hard disk cable). Also, you can use a grub4dos bootdisk so that you can easily "separate" the POST phase from the actual OS loading one. jaclaz

I am confused by your reports: Were you previously using dmde to look at the $MFT of the "image" you made? If yes, that image - even if partial - actually holds a seemingly valid $MFT. You can try the following: open the (partial) image with dmde check in it's directory structure the names of the fiiles you most value try using this tool getFileExtents http://www.wd-3.com/archive/luserland.htm to understand the location of the files (one by one) and/or of the various fragments of them try imaging just the relevant sectors found above with ddrescue from the original disk to new files re-assemble the new files into the "original" ones If this strategy works, you will be able to get just the "strictly needed" files in a smaller time. jaclaz

Nice. Final words of the supposedlòy "main designer" Sam Moreau: Accurate planning ahead. I am thinking about all the poor Bauhaus artists and designers and architects that had their (good) work cited as inspiration for the Nameless Crap Interface , that really hurts my heart . jaclaz

Well, the mentioned article actually says: Does imagex work with later versions of windows (BOTH running from them and managing their images)? jaclaz

BUT you can still fake that a "flat" .vhd is actually a RAW image with a single sector appended to it (which actually is ) and use grub4dos + Firadisk or Winvblock to mount it , it won't be "native" booting anymore, but still it will be booting from .vhd residing on *any* filesystem. http://reboot.pro/15407/ http://reboot.pro/15997/ http://reboot.pro/16178/ jaclaz

Looky here : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=43 jaclaz

There is AFAIK/AFAICR no reason that a mass storage device "has" to have 512 bytes sectors, the BPB in the bootsector and the filesystem have a field for that. Issue is only if this field is actually used or properly used by code (being code either the OS, it's drivers or BIOS or whatever). JFYI: jaclaz

This confirms my theory, if the idea of everyday task (which in my perverted mind is - or should be - mainly to §@ç#ing WORK ) is "surfing the Internet" , the humanity is doomed . Dictionary, meaning #1 or #3: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/task http://www.thefreedictionary.com/work can anyone spot the difference with: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/leisure jaclaz