jaclaz

Well, if I wanted you to upload a .rar to Skydrive, I would probably had asked you to do that, INSTEAD I asked you to ATTACH the file to a post as .zip. I don't use Skydrive and cannot access it. (I could, of course, but that would be more work for me) jaclaz

Naah, I suggest often Hdhacker, but just as a tool to backup/restore the sectors. http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ Normally I use the dsfok tollkit, (command line) to do the same: and I use my own little spreadsheet to calculate values I later carve by hand with TinyHexer, see: jaclaz

Well, before that, just remove the RAM and any card that you may have on it and try booting. It should beep.... jaclaz

Educate customer : http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html will lead you (and your customer) nowhere. OT , but not much , you may want to also have Nada 0.5 installed It won't do anything , but it's nice to know it's there : http://web.archive.org/web/20081217072152/http://www.bernardbelanger.com/computing/NaDa/index.php jaclaz

Good , and I avoided it (most probably since long before you "fixed it") by simply not making multiple primary FAT partitions . jaclaz

Are you sure? Device support should be unrelated to actual program. Or maybe that port is very old? But still, if a device is supported, a filesystem driver or tool should work independently, SATA is a form of ATA, it's not like it was a SCSI device. But anyway - as said - it is much better to NOT run something like that on a "live" NT system. jaclaz

And ... since Andrea failed to catch the meaning of the layman's comparison , then I will venture to hypotesize that a PEBCAK may be occurring, additionally http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_error jaclaz

Well, if you reinstall the stupid driver and it is actually the culprit, you will be again in the same situation.... jaclaz

Leave the Registry alone. Do make a backup of it "as is" using ERUNT and leave it "as is", if you edit incorrectly the configurations set you may get an unbootable system. Once thing are fixed, we will talk of resetting the Registry. jaclaz

Though it would not be the first time that the good MS guys misname things, a BSOD is actually a way to show you a STOP ERROR, and after a STOP, the computer is HALTed. I have never seen in my whole life a PC with a NT based system "revive" and start after a BSOD, and I would be interested if you could expand on your experience. @doveman BSOD means "nothing" it's the STOP ERROR number that may give some hint on the cause. Having last driver loaded being atipcie.sys as well says "nothing", that is the last driver loaded (and the failure is usually on the NEXT one that is not listed as it is not loaded, as it actually fails while loading and before anything is written to screen) jaclaz

Andrea : Thanks, voted. With all due respect, and though I cannot find personally one reason in the world to have a "messenger" app, the aMSN is not a "niche" product, tested and used by a small bunch of geeks, we are talking of more than 40 millions downloads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMSN http://www.amsn-project.net/ so I do suspect that there is something specific to your setup that creates the issues you described. Same goes fo Miranda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_IM http://www.miranda-im.org/ Layman's comparison: If your old model Volkswagen Beetle (or Renault R4) doesn't start in the morning, you don't go around saying that the Volkswagen Beetle (or Renault R4) doesn't work and/or is not reliable/tough, you simply have a single specimen that doesn't work or you failed to perform the necessary maintenance or you left it all night with lights on and battery is dead. You have one of the two most reliable cars ever built, but even the best one may not start. jaclaz

NO. It doesn't work like that. Of the four entries in a EPBR only TWO are "filled", the first one with "itself" (i.e. first next volume in the Extended partition space) and the other points to next EPBR..... and so on until you get to last EPBR that has obviously NOT the entry to next EPBR. This applies to *any* OS that supports the extended partition, including DOS and Win9x. Read: http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/ptable.shtml More than one primary partition is not recommended on VERY OLD DOS versions, but has no issues that I know of on at least MS-DOS 5.00 and later (but still FDISK won't let you make them). The only possible issue with multiple primaries is possibly this one: http://www2.arnes.si/~fkomar/xosl.org/faqhow/faq.html http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.shtml#note01 Drive letter assignment follows an algoithm that is different on different OS, see here: page__view__findpost__p__913549 AND links within: DOS (and Win9x/Me): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/51978/en-us 2K (and later): http://www.dewassoc.com/support/win2000/driveletters.htm This said, it is UNneeded to have more than one primary partition accessible/mountable by DOS based systems, and this approach has worked now since what, 18 years : You use only 2 of the 4 MBR entries, and you have two still free for other OS if needed and yes, also 98/Me can be installed to a logical volume, see: http://www.allensmith.net/OS/XOSL/II.htm#Content The additional findings by Dan Goodell's, see the already mentioned: http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/ptable.shtml allow additionally to directly boot from a logical volume. jaclaz

First thing that comes to mind is Linux ntfsundelete: http://linux.die.net/man/8/ntfsundelete Running an undelete software in a running NT based systems is risky, that's why most programs, like Testdisk: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Undelete_files_from_NTFS_with_TestDisk won't t let you simply UNflag the $MFT entry. And same goes for most tools, another example: http://www.uneraser.com/quest1.htm A port of the Linux tool may work for you: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/ntfsprogs.htm jaclaz

Also, try it with no hard disks/devices connected, I have seen more than one PSU - due to components aging - having not enough "juice" to boot a system with (say) two hard disks connected but capable of powering it up with just one disk or no disk connected. jaclaz

Try powering it with the ATX PS_ON connected to ground: http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/22 http://www.arcade-emulator.co.uk/hardware.html (it may well be a defective power supply) jaclaz

I am not sure to follow you. The "really classical" partition scheme (what FDISK will let you do) allows for: 1 Primary 1 Extended (containing as many logical volumes as you wish inside it) But since there are 4 partition entries in the MBR you can have either: 4 primaries or 3 primaries 1 Extended (containing as many logical volumes as you wish inside it) There is no theoretical lmit to the number of logical volumes you can have inside an extended partition (as it is simply a "chain" of volumes, each EPBR has an entry for "itself" - i.e. the logical volume and an entry for "next" EPBR in the chain). The issue you may have is the number of available drive letters (26-2)=24 The real "adantage" of having a NT based system /since 2K) is that you can have even a small NTFS partition and as many mountpoints (volumes mapped to directories) as you wish without needing to "use" drive letters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume_Mount_Point http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc938934.aspx I don't recall having seen something (third party) similar for 9x/Me but I may be wrong. It would be interesting to test if any of the NTFS drivers for Win9x/Me are compatible with this feature (that is actually a feature of NTFS 3.0+ and not of the NT kernel, AFAIK) jaclaz

I presume that CharlotteTheHarlot is asking about the freedom to vote in the poll. Personally I would vote: What do you think of the forced upgrade to Windows Live Essentials 2011? Wrong Do you use an older version of Windows Live Messenger 2009? NO. ( I don't use ANY version of Windows Live Messenger, never did and never will.) Do you ever want to upgrade to Windows Live Essentials 2011 version? NO. ( I don't use ANY version of Windows Live Messenger, never did and never will, let alone Live Essentials.) I cannot answer the second question as it does not provide me with the appropriate choice. An alternative is to call the poll "reserved to people that use Live Messenger"... jaclaz

Unless it is connected to other car electronic subsystems.... Imagine that the cruise control NEEDS the original radio to be there. Or, more exactly, imagine that Mr. Ford affirms that you have to have the original radio because otherwise the cruise control that you set at 55 Mph may increase actual speed of the car at a 2 Mph/minute rate while the speed indicators remains fixed to 55. 1/2 to 3/4 of the issues have been because the MS guys attempted for years to convince people that IE was an essential part of the OS and that could not be removed. What do you think fdv did ? He simply called the bluff! What the EU did on the IE case, was the same, after the WMP fines that actually led to the N version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_competition_case Here: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/15&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en MS was never "punished", nor actually "judged" for the integration of IE, the EU simply announced that they wanted to have a deep look at it, and MS decided to make WIndows 7 E. In other words you are confusing the N version (Windows Media Player related and for which MS was condemned/fined) with the E version (Internet Explorer or more generally "browser" related for which MS changed plans without having been condemned/fined). See also: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10262630-56.html jaclaz

Well, cluster size is (and always has been and always will be) a trade-off. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/partFAT32-c.html If you want an efficient (actually as efficient as it can be) FAT filesystem, you want SMALL FAT tables, please read as FEW clusters indexed in them, i.e. LARGE cluster size. The amount of "wasted" space with large cluster size will however be impressive. The "default" setting is 32 Kb cluster size (and is ALREADY NOT efficient on such Large volumes). The previous 16K size could be defined as "pure folly". A FAT 32 volume is made by: a few "hidden sectors", number may vary in different implementations, but usually32 sectors a FAT table a second copy of it indexed space containing files or ready to contain them Since evey FAT table entry is 4 bytes long, every sector (exception made for the first one, that "loses" two entries) of a FAT32 table can index 512/4=128 clusters Talking of a 681GB partition, i.e. 681*1024*1024*1024=731,218,182,144 bytes one, in sectors 731,218,182,144/512= 1,428,160,512 you have around: 32+2*348,502+ 1,427,463,476=1428160512 I.e. the FAT table is around 348,502*512=178,433,024 bytes in size or around 170 Mb! Using 64 Kb cluster size, the FAT becomes a much better (though still "crazy") roughly 42 Mb. The default according to MS is 32 Kb clusterss for anything bigger than 32 GB, meaning that according to them, a (say) 33 Gb partition with 16 Kb clusters, i.e. with a FAT table of around 8Mb, is already less efficient than a 32 K one and you had a partition 20 times bigger with half the size for clusters, a 1 to 40 ratio! Spring effect graphics! http://reboot.pro/13466/ jaclaz

Can you post some details? Is it possible that the issue was that you (actually EaseUS Partition Master) had to resize the cluster size for the newly "shrinked" or "enlarged" partition? How big were clusters on the "before" partition? (and how big was it)? How big are clusters in the "after" partition? (and how big is it)? How much data was in the partition? Can I also dare to ask WHY are you using such big partitions? jaclaz

Well, first thing: DO NOT PANIC (assume the above to be written in large, friendly letters) What you describe looks lke a (minor) form of corruption of the filesystem. It is likely that it is possible to recover those files, but the issue is understanding WHAT could have happened. If I get it right that folder became system, hidden and had .sys extension added but without changing it's name? The right procedure would be to make first thing an image of the whole disk (as to have a way back if needed) or, at the very list, of the single drive affected. Can you detail about the 15 Gb and the "hidden" 30 GB, I am not sure to have followed you. Which kind of content was in it? I mean, it should be possible to recover the actual files BUT losing their filenames, are we talking of tens, hundreds or thousands of files? How big is the affected G: drive/partition? How big is the whole disk containing the affected drive/partition? Do you have on ANOTHER disk enough free space to contain a copy of the whole disk or at least a copy of the whole partition? Is this an internal disk or an external one (possibly USB or firewire)? If it is the main internal boot diks, do you have anoher PC on which to work? jaclaz

All the volume information that you can see through the (unsuited for this use) tools you are using, yes . All the volume information, no . Get first sector of the physicaldrive of both the "source "and the "failed target". <- this is the MBR Get first sector of the logicaldrive of both the "source "and the "failed target". <- this is the PBR or bootsector Zip compress them together and attach the archive to your next post, so that I can have a look at them. On a normal 32 bit system you would normally use Hdhacker for this: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ In the meantime compare them yourself in *any* disk/hex editor. You might find several differences between them.... jaclaz

Just in case, the procedure involves using some "good" program to attempt imaging the disk, first thing, some hints are given here: http://reboot.pro/7783/ http://reboot.pro/15040/ http://reboot.pro/15040/#entry133567 jaclaz

I don't get it. You can use NTFS or exFAT allright. jaclaz

NO. Meaning that it's not a limit specific to WinPE, nor to it's 3.x version, and not even connected to diskpart, also 2K and any later MS OS have been limited by design to format max 32 Gb as FAT32: http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm Now, whether this artificial limitation is intelligent or not, is another thing, but, under plain 32 bit there are several tools to create (format) such biggish FAT32 volumes, examples: http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/ http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/WD-FAT32-Formatter.shtml So, once set aside the debate whether making a bigger than FAT32 GB volume and expecially a very large one in the hundreds of gygabytes range is somehing smart to do or not, the problem you are having is formatting a volume so huge under 64 bit OS? http://www.x64bitdownload.com/downloads/t-64-bit-2tware-fat32-formatter-download-rfaktdxn.html http://www.fat32-formatter.com/product/1/2tware+fat32+formatter It must be tough living with a malfunctioning Google.... jaclaz