jaclaz

Something like this: http://retired.beyondlogic.org/dddtools/dddtools.htm (go to the bottom of the page "Device Driver Remover for Windows 95 & Windows 98") only with command line interface, should be what is needed, or, if noone finds it, possibly it can be "automated" via AutoHotKey or similar... Or, maybe something similar to the FTDI CDM uninstaller (BUT Win9x oriented): http://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm but one needs anyway to parse the Registry to get the Vid/Pid... It is very likely that the "Complex UNinstall Method" described here: http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/devicedoc/51417b.pdf can be automated via batch or similar... jaclaz

Just wanted to share this nice thingy, I am not alone in thinking that the paradigm shift is towards more "passive" use of the technoology, Scott Adams (Author of the Dilbert strips) has put it down way more nicely than I did (obviously): http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_amazingness_of_instant/ jaclaz

42 (at least). How many roads must a man walk down before .....? Approximately the same number of times one must say RTFM and ground ALL equipment used to unbrick the 7200.110s JFYI: etc., etc. I guess 50% of my posts in the related thread ONLY provide these three directions: Read the read-me-first FIRST do EXACTLY what is in it and in the advised guide ground ALL items (and loop to #1) BUT specifically, and if I may , there should be a way to add in the installer/whatever *something* that automatically removes anything that needs to be removed prior of the installtion of NUSB it would be a "quantum leap" for a next version.... jaclaz

Yep , I had guessed that (since you completely failed to mention firadisk, as well as any actual detail on how you have currently setup your iso ), the suggestion was to try using IMDISK instead (as it comes in 64 bit version and signed) but the not-so-hidden attached strings was YMMV . jaclaz

Well, you asked for it, so, yes you are WRONG. The original issue is about a firmware bug that simply "bricks" the driver when a log reaches a certain entry number 320*n+256, more details are here: IF the disk is affected EXCLUSIVELY by the mentioned bug, it will brick every 3 to 9 months on average and can be re-unbricked all the times. BUT the "bricking" may be due to OTHER reasons. AND the "unbricking" procedure may temporarily provide "relief" to this other condition (just enough to hopefully get the data back). @Hazor The "garbage" is connected normally with missing or badly implemented GROUNDING. Check, re-check and triple check that proper grounding is effective. Read attentively the read-me-first, particularly point #7: jaclaz

Why not getting it from the "mouth of the wolf", for the exact OS you have, updated to the exact SP level you need and create out of it a .iso? Here: http://reboot.pro/2254/ http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310994 and no, the good MS guys didn't make a SP3 version, AFAIK. jaclaz

I totally missed the reference to "six" points! There are obviously only 5. The sentence is particularly ambiguous. It can be read as if there are 5 "explicit" points (or if you prefer 5 values in the Registry key) and a sixth (implied) one set by design to 0. I.e. it is possible that the curve is actually: [0,0] (0,0) (0,430007935.1,369995117) (1,25,5,300003052) (3.86000061,24.0000305) (40,568) What happens if we set first "explicit" point to something different from (0,0)? Like, as an example, to (0,0.215)? jaclaz

A lot of years have passed since the last time I had to do this, but - just for the record - I remember that it is perfectly possibly (on 9x/Me systems) to use "plain" Xcopy/Xcopy32, the good ol': of course target must be partitioned/formatted/SYSed, cannot remember if I used some additional tools/steps, exception made for temporarily disabling pagefile (no pagefile) and running in safe mode, original source: http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/hd/cpyhd/cpyhd2.htm The directory dates are usually of no relevance (keeping 'em or having them changed won't make a difference in normal operation). jaclaz

No need whatever to re-partition, but if you have not the patience (and abilities) needed, you can well re-install, this time using a migrate.inf file and have the letters assigned the way you want them to be. jaclaz

Which "signature"? You mean volume serial number? I.e. the data that is @27h in a FAT16 and @43h in a FAT32 PBR ? jaclaz

Oww, comeon , in love, war and MS computing there are NO rules , or if you prefer: jaclaz

Very interesting info in your post . I will try and digest them. There is a point in this: that I can clarify immediately. (as said the proposed curves need to be "scaled" , as the intention was to render the "shape" of the curve, so the reason for the initial 2:1 was that of attempting to emulate as good as possible the Win2k for the "most used" part within the 4 segment limit). One of the really "queer" things in the "XP ballistics" article (among many - if not plainly wrong - definitely incorrect or deceiving info) is the actual numbers of points (and conversely segments): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463319.aspx Now, even a single handed guy can count up to six (by touching his nose ) so HOW THE HECK they managed to wriite down such inconsistent info? Another thing, if really-really the graph and data are expressed in inch/s (something that I am starting to doubt GREATLY) and IF the "extrapolation limit" is set at 4-inch (should be 4 inch/s), all points up to n-1 should have X values below 4 (and this happens with the default curve) and any curve where the n-1 point is greater than 4 should have a n-1 to n segment that is ignored And of course having the n point on 40 is pure nonsense, n could be fixed at (say) 5 and n-1 fixed to slightly less than 4 (and the original curve is around 3,86). jaclaz

Actually one should go through the respective drive manufacturer diagnostics, BEFORE that . And possibly re-test with a tool like Victoria or mhdd.... Then flip a coin, and whatever is the result , change that drive, and the new one will crash in two months time. Seriously, very few things in my experience are so aleatory as the "expected lifetime" of a disk. Once upon a time (many, many years ago) I saved some data from a Samsung HD (a 4.3 Gb one, so you understand how much time has passed). The drive suffered from a rather "heavy" head crash which made several HUNDREDS clusters not only unreadable any more but even not formattable (and in theory there should be magnetic debris all over the disk, likely to ruin quickly the whole surface). Once I got the data (luckily the actual "important" data was fully recovered) and having installed a new hard disk, I had this "relic" around. After a few tests with zeroing out, formatting, wiping, etc. with no result, I set it aside. Being (notoriously) cheap a few years later I decided to make an experiment (I needed a small hard disk for a headless "controller like" machine, of course not in mission critical use). I simply determined by experiment where the bad clusters were ( a biggish almost contiguous zone around 1/3 of the disk) and simply partitioned the disk in such a way that that zone was left untouched (one partition before and one after the bad zone). As per today, that machine (and the disk) is still working allright (and has it worked 24/7 for the last - cannot remember exactly - 8 or 9 years). What gives? jaclaz

To be more specific, the grub4dos (and Firadisk and Winvblock) capabilities, are a "side effect". A "static" .vhd is nothing but a plain "dd-like" disk image with a 512 byte footer added. These tool DO NOT "support" specifically .vhd's, they are intended for and do support "dd-like" images. By pure chance (MS would call this "by design" ) a static .vhd - in the "eyes" of the mentioned tools - is the same thing (only it has one "unused" sector at the end). (and yes the format is actually the old Connectix one) Also, to put things in their historical perspective, in february/march 2009 neither of Firadisk or Winvblock were available (let alone vmlite). Some list/history: http://reboot.pro/1507/ Winvblock: http://reboot.pro/8168/ Firadisk: http://reboot.pro/8804/ jaclaz

See if you can find anything in here (this one actually needs duplicate .iso's - which you do not want): http://reboot.pro/9076/ http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/multiisoimdiskautounattend http://www.rmprepusb.com/tutorials/firawiniso but since it was born to remove the "required CD/DVD" issue, it may contain the solution to this issue. First one uses IMDISK second one Firadisk, possibly the first one could be more suitable, even if slightly more complex to setup. jaclaz

Well, then I managed to just do something impossible. jaclaz

Sure but it is 1/5 of the original and it will take roughly 1/5 of the time to be cleared. Since on this machine I have more than 2 gb of RAM and currently the pagefile is not in use (I am "peeking at around 700 Mb of used memory), I can allright delete the pagefile (on whichever drive it is), this is actually what I have done while I am typing this post. The "vanishing" is "immediate". I cannot for a number of reasons reboot right now, so I have no idea what will happen then (if a pagefile will be created at all, if it will be created with the "windows managed settings, whatever). Please let us not transform this otherwise peaceful thread in the usual "Windows can run without a pagefile vs. No, you d@mn id*** it cannot", or of the "You better leave pagefile managed by windows vs. "NO, it should be 1.5 to 2.0 x your RAM size", "Godzilla vs. King Kong" (and YES, the dinosaur can kick that grown up chimpanzee's @ss all the way to the moon and back with BOTH hands tied behind it's back ). jaclaz

Are you sure you can't delete it? One should be able to at-least resize it to something like 70÷120 Mb: and then clear this latter. How long will it take? How long will re-creating/expanding it at next boot? Somehow I feel that another possibility could be to move it's physical location in the Registry : http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp/t1040090780 or add a new pagefile on another volume. Quick test (just made). Starting from a 500-500 pagefile.sys on C: (%Systemdrive%), created through the normal GUI a new 100-100 pagefile.sys on D; and removed the one on C: You must reboot for these changes to take effect, bla, bla, bla.... Instead of rebooting, ran Unlocker on the C:\pagefile.sys and Unlocked it (at it went "poof" ). jaclaz

Why not using a browser? http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2011/07/speech-to-text-in-google-chrome.html Also sometimes info is nearer than what you may expect : jaclaz

I haven't tried COA2 yet. Do you mean use it to automate the substitution of "F:/" for "C:/"? The way I do it is easy -- clear their attributes, then open *.DAT, *.INI, *.LNK in Notepad++, hit replace, save all, and done. Takes a couple of minutes. Sure , you can also use gsar, or a hex editor, or *whatever*, COA2 is just a handy utility, designed specifically for this task. Carpenter's comparison (if needed ): jaclaz

As expected. You were already given the appropriate links to read : You need to do a number of changes to the Registry when offline, not just the drive letter in Mounted devices, when it is the System drive... There is a report counting around 4000 (four thousand) occurences that need to be changed in Registry and related files: http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t310287-change-boot-drive-letter-xppro.html The use of tools like Registrar: http://www.resplendence.com/reglite (i.e. anything that can do a "general" search and replace of the registry) is advised, alternatively, if you want to "risk" the hex approach sketched in the mentioned thread, gsar is a good tool: http://home.online.no/~tjaberg/ Your mileage may vary anyway . jaclaz

AFAICR the pagefile is created (if missing) at startup with a mechanism similar to using FSUTIL (on NTFS), thus it should be very quick. jaclaz

.... the good news being that it can be-re-added through an add-on : http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2009/11/02/excel-add-in-for-manipulating-points-on-charts-mpoc.aspx jaclaz P.S.: just realized that I left a "link" in the mouseaccelW2k spreadsheet, I am updating the posted file, please re-download.

AFAIK the Group Policy is still "clear" (and NOT "delete") see: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/window-on-windows/take-control-of-the-windows-xp-pagefile/2216 Pagefileconfig.vbs seems like a more suitable choice. jaclaz

Yep , you got me . AFAIK that (making people write dates/numbers/basic math and their symbols) was used as a quick way to find non-native enemy spies, it seems like most people - even very well trained/bilingual ones - when it comes to this tend to revert to their native conventions (i.e. the ones they learned as kids/at school), but exception made for the US, I believe that the rest of the world, uses dates in the "normal" way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country so I could well be from (say) Brazil.... AND, at least according to this, the trend is towards an expansion of this use even in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_and_time_notation_in_the_United_States Now, for NO apparent reason, a nice file renamer: http://www.1-4a.com/rename/ with an interesting option/feature : http://www.1-4a.com/rename/stardate.htm jaclaz