jaclaz

NO . Meaning that I do not believe you or you did something "wrong" (or you failed to do something) . It seems like the modified autoexec.bat is not run at all. Let's do it like this , try describing in your words EXACTLY what you have done (the DETAILED procedure you used to modify the autoexec.bat and rebuild the image). Then, still on the autoexec you posted, and modified as per my last post, replace: @ECHO OFF with: REM @ECHO OFF Then insert after the line: %RAMD%:\fdisk.exe a : PAUSE Then try again, and report what you see when the boot is initiated. Additionally compress the WHOLE modified autoexec.bat to a .zip file and attach the file to yor next post. jaclaz

vinifera Start again from the autoexec.bat you posted. What dencorso posted: What he meant: Then (this was jaclaz meant) do change the line: call fdisk.bat %RAMD% to: %RAMD%:\fdisk.exe jaclaz

The file you posted is a $MFT . The $MFT contents are seemingly that of a (well mixed up) Windows 7 "system" partition, without going into much details, the $MFT has been created (please read as filesystem was formatted) on 2010-04-26, and some of the usual WIndows 7 boot files are there with the same date. Then there are folders: $WINDOWS.~LS SETUPT~1 Sources created on 2011-09-02 Then there is a mountpoint made on 2012-07-15 (this is probably compatible with your attempts) Then there is a deleted folder MSI4519d.tmp created on 2012-07-22 (this is probably compatible with your attempts) This is the $MFT of the first partition allright. This is at the same time some good news and some bad news , the good news are that you didn't seemingly did any "meaningful" damage to this volume during your attempts, the bad news are that you still need to search for the $MFT (or traces of it) on the "main" partition. Some more bad news are that your cousin actually LIED to you , the bootmgr is seemingly that of a Windows 7 (and is there since 2010) and evidently some attempts to re-install Vista or 7 were made in September 2011. jaclaz

From the little I can understand, the /sdb1 is a partition on the HD. The example in the thread: http://serverfault.com/questions/55089/with-what-tool-should-i-format-a-hard-drive-as-udf is about /sdx (i.e. a WHOLE hard disk), as well as the man pages you found. So, it seems like the command is designed on Linux for non-partitioned media (and cannot say if 2 Tb is simply "too big"). On the other hand I presume that on Linux there is *some* way to map a partition/volume (already existing - created with fdisk or the like) to a whole device Though we now know that partition ID's in the MBR are actually just "protective" partition ID's: http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/determining-filesystem-type.html one has anyway to find a suitable partition ID for the UDF filesystem .... We need someone with Vista or later to test the behaviour described on that thread. but right now it seems to me like for the good MS guys a UDF volume is a volume, whilst for the good Linux guys a UDF device is a device (though it is very possible that - as said - there is a workaround under Linux, whilst most probably under Vista and later, you can have that effect by using rdummy.sys). In case anyone wants to experiment, reference to rdummy.sys: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=24966 jaclaz

I am not sure to understand what you want to do. Let's take just your two added lines: This copies file fdisk.bat ( that must be in current in ROOT of the floppy or in ROOT of the CD, since the PATH was defined a few lines earlier as "path=%RAMD%:\;a:\;%CDROM%:\", but the CDROM won't be available since you haven't yet loaded MSCDEX.EXE) to %RAMD%:\ (which letter should be assigned by an external batch setramd.bat This calls fdisk.bat (WHICH one, the one on the floppy or the one that should have been copied to %RAMD%? ) with as parameter %RAMD%, i.e. if the setramd.bat assigned to the RAMD variable the value of (say) R, you are effectively running fdisk.bat R WHAT are the exact contents of fdisk.bat? The command fdisk does not in itself accept a drive letter parameter: http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm and if it did it would have probably wanted the colon. But unless the fdisk.bat changes current directory the "current root" will remain the one where the autoexec.bat is, i.e. root of the floppy. Maybe you want to have: call %RAMD%:\fdisk.bat But why are you using this additiona fdisk.bat? Wouldn't it be more natural to remove the need to copy the fdisk.bat to the Ramdisk and then call it by simply having instead of the "call fdisk.bat %RAMD%" a more "direct": %RAMD%:\fdisk.exe jaclaz

Good catch . Just for the record, the Wayback Machine comes to the rescue once again : http://web.archive.org/web/20050217004501/http://download.microsoft.com/download/office2000prem/adminup2/SR-1a/WIN98/EN-US/O2KSR1aDL.EXE jaclaz

I am not saying anything much different from you, if you read my bowling balls machinery comparison attentively. MagicAndre1981 permitting , I would say that Vista (as delivered by MS) is far less efficient than 2K (still as delvered by MS), that windows 7 (still as delvered by MS) is more efficient than Vista and that hopefully Windows 8 (still as delvered by MS) may (possibly) be more efficient than Windows 7, only - and anyway - on a hardware with a zillion times faster CPU and n times the RAM, while occupying at least 10 times the hard disk space when compared to hardware used at the good ol' 2K times. If I buy a production line for my bowling balls factory I want it to §@ç#ing produce bowling balls efficiently as soon as the seller delivers, assembles and tests/tunes/adjust it. You are introducing a variation, you are using my chief engineer's 25+ years of experience on previous bowling balls production plants to introduce any number of betterings to the newly delivered plant, something that will cost me money and time (and lesser production for any number of months). In such a case I would (provided that the seller promised me a more efficient plant than the one I bought from him a few years before): not pay fully the seller (as a precaution) have him pay the time and minor production of bowling balls (+ some damages), either through a settlement or sueing his firm As a side note, unfortunately for you and all the other Win9x fans/aficionados, the idea of comparing the (no offence whatsoever intended ) W9x/Me family of OS with the NT family never crossed my mind, not because it's not "good" in itself, but because it is too many years that it has been abandoned officially (in the sense that all the development took "the other" path) and was never IMHO an "as good" (for "production") OS when compared to the corresponding NT family OS (and no I dont' want to start the usual flame war between 9x and NT, FAT32 vs. NTFS, Vista vs. rest of the world, etc.) @Trip Sorry for the link, didn't noticed/remember iwas in the Dev area . jaclaz

Just for the record, it does not write to the bootsector, it writes to (absolute) disk sector 32: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/321444.html jaclaz

The real issue, as I see it, is NOT that they chose not to listen to their customers, that's part of their freedom , what really makes me upset is that while NOT listening to them, the declare they ARE listening . I mean, if Sinofsky (or any of the MS "top managers") had some guts, they would say the truth: Then, I would still personally disagree with their vision , and I would still think that they are a bunch of arrogant morons but I would admire them for the courage they show and for the tenacity with which they progress with their (flawed) project. If you think about it, the current stance is that of cowards: "we didn't make it because we think it is right and believe in our vision, we conducted surveys, we listened and we did what you asked" is very little different form "Officer, the Devil made me do it.". OT , but not much , http://brandednoise.tumblr.com/post/19884819335/marmite-mouthwash-and-microsoft jaclaz

@Multibooter Of course READing UDF is "easy", according to the posted link it seems like both Linux and Vista (and later) can Format a drive as UDF and read/WRITE the filesystem. jaclaz

You are welcome . Remember that it is advised to update Office 2000, once installed, with the Service pack 3: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/276367/en-us (you will need to update to SP1 before updating to SP3). If you want a valid reason (apart my opinion on it ) about Office 2007, read this (and links there given) : http://reboot.pro/3181/ only for fun, of course: chances that you actually need to multiply 77.1 by 850 - or any of the other bunch of values affected - and that the accuracy of the result being actually "important" could feed the Star of Gold Infinite Improbability Drive with enough matter to go across the Galaxy, twice, and the issue has been corrected: but it is a very good argument if someone tells you that you should update to Office 2007 . jaclaz

OK. A $MFT is actually made of n "entries", each two sectors in size, and each beginning with "FILE0". A $MFT mirror is a copy of the first 4 (four) such entries. Right now you seem like having a possibly valid "something" starting at sector 70312 up to 70801, but keep searching. Once you have finished going through the drive, copy the groups of sectors that correspond to these characteristics (like the group above) to new files. To do so, you can use datarescuedd allright (using the SECTORS fields and NOT the SIZE ones). To be on the "safe" side, copy some more sectors before he first hit and after the last hit in the group, let's say 200 sectors more or something like that, for the example found above, instead of copying only sectors 70312-70801, copy 1000 sectors, i.e. from 70000 to 71000. Verify that you got the "right" sectors extracted, then zip all the files and upload the zip somewhere I can get them from, like zshare or similar and post a link to the files. To re-gain some "quota" on the forum, you may want to edit your previous post and delete from them the attachment screenshots, they are not needed anymore, and/or you may want to post them screenshots on a free image hosting service and post the link to it. jaclaz

It looks a lot like a newer version of: http://ruanmei.deviantart.com/#/d49wt38 AND part of a more complete "suite" of applications: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.win8china.com%2Fwindows8master%2F http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.win8china.com%2Fwindows8master%2Fhistory.htm AND there is a dedicated (still Chinese) Forum: http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?rurl=translate.google.com&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http://bbs.ithome.com/forum-108-1.html&usg=ALkJrhhkx9a3we8y2prurJ7a_0N0TTH3rw IMHO, IF it is a "conspiracy" to spread a virus of some kind, it is very well organized . jaclaz

As often happens OT , but not much, it seems like our good Linux friends have a distinctive advantage on this, though it *seems* like also Vista and 7 users have it: http://superuser.com/questions/39942/using-udf-on-a-usb-flash-drive http://serverfault.com/questions/55089/with-what-tool-should-i-format-a-hard-drive-as-udf About iso's used on hard disk one can use a hybrid .iso allright, some interesting things here : http://reboot.pro/9916/ jaclaz

Then the advantage could be that exFAT is seemingly faster than NTFS: http://reboot.pro/17255/ http://thessdreview.com/Forums/software/1834.htm Though of course there is nothing in the above except for the sentence: and as we discussed here, the reliability of benchmarks and their actual being representative of "real life usage" has to be evaluated carefully. It would "make sense", in the sense that theoretically a FAT32 should be faster than NTFS (it needs to read less data to get to the file you want at least until the number of files grows to very high numbers), but, as seen here: at least in some applications it has been somehow "dumbed down" by the good guys at MS. See also the very detailed: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbstick_e.html exFAT, being more similar to FAT32 and being also been "pushed" by the same MS guys, could have been optimized, see also: http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_vs_fat.htm It is only slightly faster on USB sticks along results of this test (also already mentioned in the given thread), but only in a few of the many benchmarks: http://blog.testfreaks.com/information/usb-flash-drive-comparison-part-2-fat32-vs-ntfs-vs-exfat/ jaclaz

NO. but anyway jolt down the number of sectors where you find a hit. jaclaz

Yes, that is the problem when searchig for "FILE" or "46494C45". On second thought, you could change the hex string to "46494C4530" (same as "FILE0"), it would avoid false positives. If you get t the "right" sector, the string "FILE0" will be, see the mentioned thread: in the top row of the viewed sector. jaclaz

Yes . http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html only you won't like it . The "best" way is to recreate a "plain" XP install CD by "assembling" toghether files that you have either in the \I386 or in the \I386DIST (or possibly, if you have access to the hard disk, on the hard disk). Then you try slipstreaming a servicepack that will hopefully fill any "gap". It is normally perfectly possible and here is a (long and wordy ) thread about a success with this approach and some very detailed steps: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=24161&hl= jaclaz

My bad , I was not clear enough. You are now searching for a "hex string", so you need to DE-select the "Find text" checkbox. Sorry for the misunderstanding , you'll need to redo starting from 20848 . At first sight the only thing that may have caused a serious data corruption is the Windows 7 bootrec command (I am not familiar with it, but - as a general rule - never use a tool designed to recover a given OS or another OS), but this does not yet explains the kind of issue you are having. If all the thing that needs to be recovered are the photos, you may ( if nothing works) still try Photorec, but from what you posted about the "poor" quality of the recovered files by the other application, I cannot swear that it could be any better for a "file recovery" approach. HP normally does use a recovery partition, but cannot say right now if this could have influenced anything, I mean that partition, if it was before the "mian" one would probably have been bigger than the current stoopid WIndows 7 partition, so the $MFT should have been at the most "after" the calculated addresses. If there was a HP recovery partition and it was before the main partiton and it was less than 100 MB, then the addresses calculated woould be wrong. Let's see what happens with the search..... jaclaz

Does this HAVE to be done after booting with the card connected on the VL400? I checked the signature and it is 0000 but perhaps this get's changed when booting with the card connected? Also, can I test boot the CF on my PC just to check it's working here or is it important that I only boot it on the VL400? I tested it with MobaLive (Qemu) anyway and that worked fine, so it's probably OK. It doesn't really make any "real" difference. Mkimg/mrbatch were designed to be a helper for further "customizations", and it leaves the disk signature "blank". Such a device won't boot (fully) a NT system (but it should have no problem whatsoever in booting up to the BOOT.INI choices). As soon as a device with a 00000000 signature is connected to a NT running system, at mount time the NT system will write one. You can try booting from it on *any* system, at the most it won't boot, the need to have any non 0 signature is only for later when you will actually try booting a NT system from it. You can either connect it to a system that boots (from another media) a NT based system or write manually any non 0 value to it. Till now we are experimenting only in the "real mode" part of booting, the need for the disk signature is when NTLDR will "switch" to "Protected mode". jaclaz

Personally I would NOT take the car market as very good example of either "intelligent" or "customer driven" or "good" (in the sense of "good for the customer" or "giving freedom to the customer") "marketing strategies". I will cite myself http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20983&st=37 The only BIG difference is that on the example car, after you have unneededly payed money for a feature that you will never use, you get for your wasted money AT LEAST a §@ç#ing switch, so that you can keep the "feature" TURNED OFF! jaclaz

I would be less pessimistic than you are, in the sense that from the few sectors you posted I don't have the feeling of a "toasted" disk, sure it may have had a few bad sectors but since the datarescuedd thing got to the end of the disk, it should be substantially "sound". It seems to me like more probable that most of the "damages" have been made (for *any* reason) by the failed attempts at recovery, this is actually the reason why one should always - unless he/she is 100% sure that it is a trivial thing and he/she is positive that it can be solved with little effort - image the disk first thing, as in case of issues there is always a "way back". I am not (yet) convinced that "everything" is lost. You are now mentioning "password", I sincerely hope that you don't mean - by any chance - that the volume was encrypted . I think I am missing something , a $MFT is a "not so little" amount of sectors, it would be queer it has been completely wiped. The "786432*8" is the "default" address for it, if the disk was partitioned/formatted with the "standard" tools. If it is possible that some "non-standard" tool has been used, it may be at another address. If I get right, you have now scanned starting from sector 6293504 all the way to the end of the disk. The settings you have in Tiny Hexer seem correct . Try this before giving up. Do the scan from sector 20848 up to 6293504. Try this time for the hex characters "46494C45" (they are the same as "FILE" in text). Also, it may help me if you could gather (from your cousin) as many details on the "story" of this disk as you can get (like which OS was there, how many parittions, if he changed something, etc, etc.) and if you would provide a (synthetic) list of the actions you attempted on the disk (again with as much detail as you can remember) before making the image with datarescuedd, including the actual name of the apps you have used, and anything that you can remember about what they did or how they behaved. Also, you should check the USB enclosure, it is possible that the "always lit" is the symptom of a problem . But you can do the scan on the image, now that you have it . Instead of File->Disk->Open Drive use File->Disk->Open disk image or large file as drive.... jaclaz

NO, you have NOT followed the instructions (or they were NOT clear enough ). the mkimg batch after the above (the snippet was posted UNIQUELY to let you see easily which values you should have used, that are bolded for your convenience) , continues, and prompts to format the partiton and will also mount it, opening it in Explorer, ready to copy to it the bolded files. Since you were EITHER PROMPTED to format the partition (and you declined the "offer" to format the partiion) OR you got an ERROR of some kind, you should have posted how you had some issues or asking what to do when prompted, wouldn't have this been more logical that "going ahead" and end up with an unformatted partition? BTW, you seemingly already ran this batch successfully, here: http://reboot.pro/16737/page__st__25#entry154146 so I cannot but assume as given that you know how it works jaclaz

Sorry, but is it stronger than me it sounds to me very like : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074860/quotes?qt=qt0247572 Seriously now , what do you mean by "safe"? I am really failing to understand the question . I mean, IF the GPU (whatever brand model it is) on your motherboard (whatever brand model it is) has a removable cooler/heatsink AND you removed it AND you want to reassemble it, THEN you MUST use some thermal compound or a "thermal pad". It's not a matter whether it is "safe", it is "unsafe" to not put some thermal paste (or similar "contact media") between a chip and it's heatsink. Or is the question something like is "Ultra Thermal Compound" , I presume this one: http://www.ultraproducts.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3298395&Sku=ULT40124 good/better/worse than <<put here another product>>? Maybe if you explain your question a bit more, providing some background ad details, you will get a "bettered targeted" answer . jaclaz

It depends on BOTH printers and drivers , in my experience: "basic" drivers (like the ones that already ship with the OS) can be installed allright with no printer connected. a number of "manufacturer" printer drivers require (not the actual drivers in themselves, but rather the completely senseless install programs and "add-ons" and "advanced control panels" and "complimentary apps") to have the printer connected (some go into the perversion of needing to be starting the install WITHOUT the printer connected BUT asking you to connect the printer at mid-install ) I seem to remember a printer, of which I won't mention the brand name if not to say that it was (almost surely) an Epson that had issues in installing the drivers because it "sensed" that one of the colour catridges was empty , cannot obviously remember the model. jaclaz