jaclaz

Good , then post it/them (the "previous" MBR and the "current" one) as I find better to have a look at actual data when compared to "description of data". I wonder WHAT (the heck) BCDEDIT has to do with the MBR (let alone wth recovering a MBR), but probably this will become evident later . jaclaz

I will give you some good and some bad news. There is NO such thing as a "9x version of the Offline Registry Library" (AFAIK, but I tend to be usually quite well informed on this specific topic ). The Rawreg is (unfortunately) a half @§§ed left in an UNfinished state, and it is perfectly UNuseful. Still AFAIK the actual file format for the Registry has not big changes between 9x and NT , and since you are going to use offline access to the file(s) the actual filenames (and the way they are combined in an actual ONliine registry) is pretty much irrelevant. Compare with: http://paullee.ru/regstry.html Via google translate: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaullee.ru%2Fregstry.html jaclaz

As I see it, there is nothing apparently "illegal" in your requests, more simply: they make no sense whatsoever you are completely failing to provide meaningful info, not only by your own will, but also when specifically asked for them You should take a deep breath, spend some time reading ATTENTIVELY these : http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.html then try re-posting your questions with some background, explaining the goals and with some more details, and possibly without assumptions. This way it will be more likely: that you get a reply that the reply is a useful/correct one. Of course you are perfectly free to expect that the tooth Windows fairy visits your thread(s): or e-mails you, but believe me, it is UNprobable. jaclaz

NO. Meaning that it is NOT possible. Either you are describing incorrectly the way the disk was partitioned before or the way you are describing it as it is now (or BOTH ). You cannot have a "first partition" and a "fourth" partition both as Logical volumes inside Extended. An Extended partition is a contiguous space on a disk that may contain one or more Logical Volumes, and BTW changing (BTW HOW exactly?) a recovery partition from Primary to Logical Volume inside Extended is likely to make it not working anymore. Do you have a copy of the MBR of the disk BEFORE you made changes? If yes, please post it together with a copy of the current MBR (you will need to put it/them inside a .zip) or upload an archive containing it/them *somewhere* and post a link to it. Alternatively, get PTEDIT32 or PartInNT from: ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/ and post a few screenshots (a plus would be if you would include those of the EPBR's in the Extended partition). Even a screenshot of Disk Management would probably do. It is possible that your partitioning scheme *somehow* confuses the booting mechanism (grub4dos based) of WinSetupfrom USB..... jaclaz

And as well *any* number of other applications. Winhex is IMHO an excellent Commercial application , though buying a license for it, is not however "justified" or "needed" if you only want to know what file corresponds to a $MFT entry. Ferrari's are beautiful ... . jaclaz

But not in the DOS one, according to: This is the part that I am trying to make as clear as possible (zone #2). jaclaz

Yes, I have understood that . BUT what I have understood is that the zone #2 (between 8Gb and 137 GB) is NOT "completely safe" without a DDO. (this was the scope of my post, making sure that I got that right) and though still not yet completley clear to me, rloew's last post (again as I read it) confirms this. (2^20) * (2^8 - 1)=267,386,880 that is NOT the 28 bit LBA it may be the limit in your specific BIOS (it is a bug in the BIOS, not the LBA 28 limit, that's why I talked of buggy bioses, if you prefer BIOSes not fully compliant to ATA specifications before ATA-6). http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf jaclaz

Yes, but there is NO connection between the entry in Disk drives and whether the device is formatted (or partitioned and formatted). In Device Manager: The whole device will have a single entry as "USB mass storage". <- this is usbstor.sys (the "single" entry I was referring to) NO matter if formatted or not, the disk device will have an entry under "disk drives". <- this is disk.sys and partmgr.sys (tI see it as a "direct consequence" of the above) If the device is NOT formatted, it will still (if functional) get a drive letter (in order to let you format it ). As always everything is possible but the "Code 43" should not be connected to the "disk device" part (or more generally with disk.sys or partmgr.sys) on a functional USB stick (it may happen with a USB adapter + hard disk, but on a Stick they are "all together"), in these cases widows would stop the "Usb Mass storage" device as a whole . It's a pity you don't remember where exactly the third entry (if I get it right the one with actually Code 43) came out in the Device Manager tree, but unless it was a single "glitch in the matrix", there will probably be a "next time" when you will be able to record this piece of info, as it still doesn't sound "right", I mean a device is either working or Windows has stopped it".... ...or could it be a case of "phantom device"? http://windowssecrets.com/newsletter/how-to-prevent-and-remove-phantom-devices/ jaclaz

@submix8, maybe you are making it more difficult than needed . CHS limits are EASY to calculate. If the BIOS sees the device as having a 255/63 geometry, latest CHS accessible sector is: 1024*255*63=16,450,560 sectors * 512 = 8,422,686,720 bytes if the BIOS sees the device as having 240/63 geometry, then: 1024*240*63=15,482,880 sectors * 512 = 7,927,234,560 LBA limits have nothing to do with CHS, nor with geometry seen by the BIOS (obviously). Again it is simply mathematics. A 28 bit number can be at it's max 268,435,455 (28 ones one after the other), you can verify this also with calc.exe: and, since LBA is measured as "offset" (i.e. starting from 0), this gives exactly 268,435,455+1=268,435,456 "indexable" sectors * 512 = 137,438,953,472 bytes. Unless there is a bug in the BIOS, these are the exact limits jaclaz

Actually judging from what has been posted, the issue is that the hard disk is not seen at all (not even with a small partition like 2 or 4 Gb). @basilico Is it by any chance a SATA disk? If this is the case you either: supply the SATA drivers on a "F6 floppy" (or similar) integrate the SATA drivers set the BIOS to "IDE compatibility mode" (or similar setting) Otherwise (AFAICR), there is no problem normally in starting the Windows setup, create a senceful sized partition for the OS, install it normally, and, after install, update the running system to SP4, eable BIG LBA and do the rest of the partitioning. jaclaz

More OT news : Tokyo Court Rules For Samsung, Says It Didn't Violate Apple Patent http://e.nikkei.com/e/fr/tnks/Nni20120831D3ZJF815.htm Anyone catching here: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19425051 the irony that ultimately the ones that first said that Samsung was copying Apple were the good Google guys (and that this is one of the key point of the jurors decision)? jaclaz

NO reason whatsoever to be happy , as the XP virus is an evolution (bloated) of the 2K one . jaclaz

That's how I did it initially (Win98 partition within BIOS size, extra FAT partitions all within <137GB, NTFS in the end), but what rleow brought up makes sense. Some FAT partitions are outside the the BIOS detected 8GB size. Some things may try to write there before Windows loads its native drivers, particularly if there's software installed there. That might lead to corruption. My vague understanding is that this isn't a problem with XP which loads its native drivers early.It would be interesting to check what happens when writing above BIOS size but below 137GB, but that's for another time, and the findings may not be generic. Well, then call me "dense" but I confirm not understanding. As I see it there are three main "zones" (rounded/simplified) 0<=x<8 Gb 8<=x<137 Gb 137 Gb <x If the issue is with "pure CHS", *anything* using CHS (and not LBA) to access zones #2 and #3 is a potential issue. If the issue is with lba-28/48 bit, *anything* using LBA 28 to access zone #3 is a potential issue. There could be THREE additional issues, i.e. partitions/volumes not entirely inside a given zone, i.e. : partition starting inside zone #1 BUT ending in zone #2 partition starting inside zone #1 BUT ending in zone #3 partition starting inside zone #2 BUT ending in zone #3 but let us exclude this since you are smart enough to NOT create this kind of "cross-border" partitions . Now if you "limit" the disk to only zone #1 size everything is fine, but (and still if I get it right what you are doing have done) if you "limit" it to only zones #1 and #2, the only additional safeguard (when compared to making only visible to DOS/Win9x partition types) is that you cannot, by mistake, create a partition crossing the border between zones #2 and #3. Am I missing something? More explicitly, what is the expected difference (possible issues) between (simplified): a 160 Gb hard disk with a CHS compatible 8 Gb partition and another one 137-8=129 Gb in size and rest of the space unpartitioned/unallocated a 160 Gb hard disk with a CHS compatible 8 Gb partition and another one 137-8=129 Gb in size and rest of the hard disk made unaccessible through HPA or similar a 160 Gb hard disk with a CHS compatible 8 Gb partition and another one 137-8=129 Gb in size and rest of the hard disk with a NTFS partiion 160-137=23 Gb in size The way I understand it, what rloew wrote is: to be on the "safe" side, you NEED to use a DDO to have no issue with zone #2 my DDO not only will fix issue in zone #2 but will also allow to use zone #3 Which I still read as: without a DDO you should limit the disk to 8 GB (zone #1 ONLY) whatever way you like, i.e. both through leaving further space unallocated or using it for partitions not recognized by DOS or using a HPA method or hardware "clamp" if available. with a "normal" DDO you should limit the disk to 137 GB (zone #1 and #2) whatever way you like, i.e. both through leaving further space unallocated or using it for partitions not recognized by DOS or using a HPA method or hardware "clamp" if available. with a "special" DDO you could avoid any limit and have all three zones available jaclaz

Try having a look at the "my500GB.img" with dmde: http://softdm.com/ even if it is a tool that is not ( like TESTDISK) suitable to be used with a less then advanced knowledge of the NTFS filesystem, you should be able to understand if there is an issue with the $MFT or with the actual filesystem contents. Another thing that you could do is to extrract some sectors starting from 6,291,519 and use on them this tool: http://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=8010/ http://code.google.com/p/mft2csv/ just to understand if the $MFT contains valid data or if it is "the issue". If this latter is the case, PHOTOREC may still be able to find many files.... jaclaz

What I am clearly missing is, since you have NO issues with BIOS (i.e. the thingy, if I got it rightly, boots normally) what is the issue with simply leaving the "rest of the disk" UNpartitioned? (or possibly using a partition ID that Win 9x surely cannot use/access (like the 0x07 NTFS or one of the 0x8x Linux ones)? jaclaz

No. At least up to version 10.*something* Opera is "kosher". And as said in Firefox it can be turned off by the user. @Joseph_sw That would be really mean , byut yes, I dont see why it wouldn't be possible.... jaclaz

Yes, besides your "negative" effect , once you find what is happening you may have actually found a hidden treasure for projects like WinFE: http://reboot.pro/forum/109/ which right now is "blocking" the mount manager, while it seems to me like by accident you managed to block at a "lower" level than that, see also this: http://reboot.pro/15883/#entry142971 there is a reference to "volmgrx" (or you could try building a WinFE ansd see if it behaves like your current build jaclaz

They just mention various limitations, but I don't think there's a WD tool to set it, but... ...but: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/936/~/operating-system-and-bios-limitations---137-gb,-32-gb,-8.4-gb jaclaz

jaclaz

There is a similar thingy for WD drives: http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/936/~/operating-system-and-bios-limitations---137-gb,-32-gb,-8.4-gb jaclaz

There must be *some* service (or "driver" or "upper/lower filter" ) that wasn't started or wasn't started successfully. Can you try using a tool like (I have no idea if it could run in your environments) like serviwin: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/serviwin.html save the lists and compare them? Particularly what about Partmgr.sys? http://www.davewolf.net/2010/02/fixing-partmgr-sys-partmgr-failing-to-start jaclaz

Well, said from an Italian , your English is much better than the "average" we find on this forum, I wouldn't be so critical about it . The sheer "electrical/electronic" handling is not particularly complex, once you will hvae reviewed the guide you will see how it is little more than (say) find out why your Chrstmas tree lights don't work.... The real issue here is that unlike for the 7200.11 (and to a far lesser degree the 7200.11 ES2) for the LP we have little "certainties", and scarce informations on both the "cause" and the "remedy". But don't worry, shouild you have no other choices and decide to "go ahead", someone will assist you. jaclaz

See if this helps : In case of need jaclaz

So, it is a "normal" USB stick? How comes you had three entries for it in the device manager? Still, you should have seen an anomaly when going through the Registry keys (provided that the still missing answer to WHAT?/HOW? is that is the "that" ) The error 43 can only happen (AFAIK) when repeatedly inserting a device (which is seemingly not your case) or when there is a conflict between two drivers, it's really strange what you report, I don't recall having ever seen more than one entry in device manager for the same device (either working or with ! or ? ) .... jaclaz

No problem, the idea was for a "perfect world" , which this isn't, evidently . Not really (if one wants not - for any reason - the NUSB ), but it's still fair enough , it's your project and you manage it the way you think fit, that's exactly why I stated how it is not matter for "voting". A (IMHO) fair request/proposal was submitted, and a (stil IMHO) fair reply (alas negative) has been given, I would say it's time to move on..... jaclaz