jaclaz

And - again - you are confusing things. Those CD/DVD's are seemingly at the same time Install and Recovery media, they are made of TWO parts, "Recovery" and "Install". Recovery is NOT Install and Install is NOT Recovery. You managed to make verbatim copies of the original disks "as-they-are". Then you -again seemingly - tested the "install" part of them AND NOT the Recovery part. What you have been told till now is that most probably there is NO problem whatsoever to modify the "install" part (even if it runs from a non-standard folder such as I386DIST\ ), adding to it new drivers and what not, BUT that we have NO way to modify the Recovery part. This because seemingly Advent used for the Recovery part a specific software we are not familiar with and that normally is not available to the "final user". jaclaz

No, that is parameter %1 to the batch, normally the filename you wish to process. Example: You have saved the batch as countunbound.cmd and you have the list in a file that is called mylist.txt, this latter in C:\mylists\ You then invoke the batch like: countunbound.cmd mylist.txt provided that you open a command prompt in the same directory where BOTH files are (C:\mylists\). Or: C:\mybatches\countunbound.cmd mylist.txt if the prompt is in the same directory where mylist.txt and it is not the same as the one countunbound.cmd is (C:\mybatches\) Or: countunbound.cmd C:\mylists\mylist.txt if the prompt is in the directory where countunbound.cmd is and mylist.txt is in directory C:\mylists\. "%~dpnx1" will expand in all cases to "C:\mylists\mylist.txt" see here also: With this approach you should also be able to use drag 'n drop, just add a PAUSE at the end of the batch. jaclaz

Yep that was supposed to be the clever part . Yes, and definitely your snippet is a much better solution for "generic" arrays, but within the limits of OP needs, I find that the fun in the game is to find the simplest possible answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor jaclaz

Neither am I. The posted example was the simplest possible covering OP requests as they were explicited (or at least as I understood them). If you have n different disk sizes, the example can be easily made "self-learning". New example: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A IN ('TYPE "%~dpnx1"') DO ( IF "%%A"=="Capacity" SET /A Current=%%B IF "%%B"==" Unbound" SET /A Unbound_!Current!+=1 ) FOR /F "tokens=2 delims==" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO SET /A Unbound_=!Unbound_!+%%A ECHO No. of Unbound disks: %Unbound_% FOR /F "Skip=1 tokens=1,2,3 delims=_=" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size %%B = !Unbound_%%B! The batch does not check existance of any previous "Unbound_*" variable in the environment, but this can be added as a "safety/sanity" check. SET Unbound_= FOR /F "tokens=2 delims=_=" %%A IN ('SET Unbound_') DO SET Unbound_%%A= jaclaz

Do not underestimate the effects of intimidating hardware too (though routers - generally speaking - are a bit tough) : jaclaz

This should do: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION SET Unbound_274845=0 SET Unbound_1878379=0 FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%A IN ('TYPE "%~dpnx1"') DO ( IF "%%A"=="Capacity" SET /A Current=%%B IF "%%B"==" Unbound" SET /A Unbound_!Current!+=1 ) SET /A Unbound=%Unbound_274845%+%Unbound_1878379% ECHO No. of Unbound disks: %Unbound% ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size 274845 = %Unbound_274845% ECHO Count of Unbound disks with size 1878379 = %Unbound_1878379% jaclaz

Not enough room for compromise, at the most you can have a (lousy) animated assistant, since the Office Assistants, and particularly Clippy were bashed for years : http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/c/clippy.htm you can now only choose between Chaos and Scuzz (the other all retired in the meantime) http://toastytech.com/guis/bob4.html jaclaz

Maybe a tadbit "too" classic : http://www.datamancer.net/keyboards/keyboards.htm REknown for the "blank" (actually all black) keyboard they also make a less clicky one now (with actual symbols): http://www.daskeyboard.com/products/ Reviews: http://www.livingdigitally.net/2011/08/mechanical-keyboard-roundup-review-of-the-das-keyboard-model-s-professional-filco-majestouch-2-dsi-m.html Keyboard surgery : http://mykeyboard.co.uk/ http://mykeyboard.co.uk/surgery/ @dencorso I am sure you will appreciate how these guys put it down rather bluntly : http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cfm jaclaz

You use one of these: jaclaz

It seems like the *whatever* is also used on some COMPAQ/HP and Gateway: http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/topic/109988-having-trouble-installing-windows-xp/ http://forums.world-informatique.com/printview.php?t=33605&start=0 My (educated ) guess, is that it is the SoftThinks thingie PCAngel: http://www.adventsupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=532 In more plain terms, it's a problem to deal with those. Only seemingly OT: Just for the record it seems like the old site pcangelle.com is now connected to Dell , and the actual PC Angel LE site is here: https://www.org-infor.fr/ https://www.org-infor.fr/WW70AWP/WW70AWP.EXE/CONNECT/PCALE (or maybe it's a mirror ) I think the only viable approach is - as cdob suggested - to rebuild a "plain" install CD/DVD, just for the record, not entirely unlike what jaclaz originally suggested : @JedClampett The idea behind verifying after a burn is to actually believe when it says that the verify failed, and, consequently, try again, NOT to pretend that it's b***§hit and ignore the error. The screenshot says that that disk has problem accessing sector 213520, it implies that anything before sector 213520 is OK, and that anything after it is "a suffusion of yellow". OF COURSE it will boot (since normally only first few sectors are used in booting) it may also initiate the install/recovery correctly, but it is LIKELY it will throw an error when it will need to read sector 213520, possibly leaving you with a half-finished, partial install. jaclaz

First thing the folder names are EITHER dates or random. If the folder names are "random" then you will have to use date attributes. If you have something like: What happens if you open a command prompt and enter (you can copy and paste): DIR C:\temp\ /A:D And what happens if you enter: DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D You will see how the most recently modified folder is the FIRST "normal" folder, either right after the "." and ".." entries or right before them. Now, issue: DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B You will see how the most recently modified folder is first one. Now issue: @ECHO OFF&FOR /F "tokens=* delims=" %A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%A" /s /q What do you get? Now issue: @ECHO OFF&FOR /F "skip=1 tokens=* delims=" %A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%A" /s /q What do you get? You have your batch: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS FOR /F "skip=1 tokens=* delims=" %%A IN ('DIR C:\temp\ /A:D /O:-D /B') DO ( ECHO rmdir "c:\temp\%%A" /s /q ) Of course in order to have it actually working you need to remove the ECHO. Also mind you that depending on the filesystem used, and on the users who created contents, you may have access permissions issue. jaclaz

I don't think you really want to know that. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16534&st=23 the explanation given there does not apply to Q10, this may: http://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?EditorIndex And the good Mac guys are not as dumb as you might think , actually the origin is likely to come from them: http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom Ideas/inspirations are exchanged between the Windows and the Mac (and the Linux) guys, some more examples: http://they.misled.us/dark-room http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/ http://writer.bighugelabs.com/ But again, someone here may be old enough to remember Qedit (q.exe): http://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?QEDIT possibly the best DOS text editor EVER jaclaz

DOS in this case is only a "short-name", DOS-like (in the sense of no graphical nonsense for non-graphical use) is a more correct definition, the test I was talking about was running on NT or 2K machines, the app was running in a window, with a DOS-like interface. For NO apparent reason: http://www.baara.com/q10/ jaclaz

Guess why the questions asked have a given order? And why before #3 there is #2? (and before it #1?) jaclaz

No, there is a boot catalog and a boot sector. No. jaclaz

I think that the basic mistake is to attempt to find a on-size-fits-all-solution (actually making a single product and then convince everyone that it is the "rigth product" for them). I mean, you know how dinosaurish I am, but the usage paradigm in a business office has not changed much in the last 20 (twenty years) or more, a typical employee will have before him/her a screen, and he/she has to input in it some data, little matters if the object is a business letter, an e-mail or some data in a "vertical" dedicated program, and most of the time what they have before them is nothing but a "thin client" or a terminal to a server. They won't *need* anything more than a plain video card and display and a keyboard, even the mouse is something mostly unneeded. (just for your interest a few years ago I tested in the same office side by side a good ol' "DOS like" accounting program with it's Windows counterpart and almost everyone that used them was happier about the easyness of the workflow with just the keyboard and a few F keys) Same goes for another vast category of non-graphical professionals, writers, solicitors, technicians, programmers (of non-graphical apps), etc., etc. Then there will be the professionals, architects, designers, graphical artists, programmers that need each and every CPU cycle, byte of RAM, pixel number and colour shade, and responsiveness they can get (and even more), AND need a stable OS, a very secure filesystem and backup/redundancy reliable solutions. Then there are the gamers that need if possible even more juice than the above, but couldn't care the least about secure filesystems, permissions, quotas, etc. On the other hand, if you are on the move you might actually want to have a portable solution, touch and what not, notwthstanding my dinosaurish approach I bought in 1993 or 1994 a Compaq Concerto, tablet with pen (and keyboard) and found it at the time a perfect business solution on the move. Then there are the "grandmothers", they have three main uses: read/write e-mails to/from their relatives and friends watch photos and (lousy videos) of their nephews search on the internet something (textual) they may be interested in And finally there are the kids (the few that are not in the gamers group ), they want multimedia (and very little more), and as long as they can get a lousy video from Youtube in low resolution they are OK. To name a known competitor, the Ipad is IMHO the perfect thing, though overpowered, for grannies, the perfect thing, though underpowered, for kids, and completely UNLIKE useful to any of the other "profiles". jaclaz

I can confirm, the M is VERY loud (which is a good thing IMHO). Clickity, clickity, click. jaclaz

No. It all depends on how much time you want to spend in creating an alternate booting sequence, if you want/can use a different CD bootsector/loader, etc. etc. If everything has to come from MS, yes. jaclaz

In an attempt to better the little batch, I actually seemingly bettered it. Now: it can run on 2K too (no need for fsutil) it can run on read-only media (no more temp file) can process files larger than 512 bytes (like whole floppy or super-floppy images) values are now right-aligned it is a tadbit slower in first screen coming up, though Verson 0.05 attached. (don't try finding version 0.04, it was for internal use only) In order to remove the temp file I had to introduce a possible bug, that along the good old tradition I will call "feature" . If the bootsector starts with "::" i.e. with 3A3A the first two bytes will be reported as 0000. I'll see if I can later remove this "feature". jaclaz view_bs_005.zip

A few questions: Do you understand the difference between KB and KiB, MB and MiB, GB and GiB, TB and TiB? Do you realize that "free space" and "size" are not interchangeable tems? Is the partition you can see, by any chance, formatted with the NTFS filesystem? Which EXACT make/model is that hard disk? Do you have a specific reason to suspect the presence of a hidden partition? Start with #1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabyte jaclaz

Yes, you can, but as said the result being functional depends on a number of factors, that tutorial is about: "standard MS source" "standard Service Pack" integration What you have in your hands may be: a OEM Install disk (and the OEM may have added something that need "additional" or "more relaxed" settings) a OEM Recovery disk (and the OEM may have added something that need "additional" or "more relaxed" settings) any of the above with additional KB integrated (and this may need "additional" or "more relaxed" settings) to the above you add the possible case-sensitiveness involved in either the ripping, the running OS or the file copying The good news are that you have nothing or very little to lose, in the worst case you will have one more shiny coaster. jaclaz

WHY? The "recommended" way is to use mkisofs (with the proper switches) or OSCDIMG (again with the proper switches). And you should always IMHO use nothing but IMGBURN to burn the .iso to media. jaclaz

Could you replace the "usual" with the actual EXACT set of commands you issued? There is very little of "usual" in this kind of things, expecially if you don't specify if what you tried initially was the BSY or LBA fix, since you are talking of spin down/spin up and of detaching the board, I presume you used the set of commands for BSY, but it would be really of help if you could post the full list of commands you issued or confirm that those that ended up successfully were EXACTLY those on the mentioned page: http://computersciencelabs.blogspot.com/2011/02/seagate-720012-sim-error-firmware-fault.html jaclaz

The parameters you gave mkisofs simply do not sound "right". Particularly on Linux sytems you should be VERY aware on CaSe SeNsItIvEnEsS. A "normal" XP INSTALL (NOT recovery, which is what you asked about) disk has the /I386 folder and it is populated by 8+3 CAPITAL ONLY files. A SP integrated INSTALL disk (or a Recovery disk, or anyway an OEM disk) may have the need for a "wider" -iso-level and/or -multidot. The typical mkisofs command used (on Windows) to take care of most of the issues (but the name of files must be compliant on source) is more complex, in your case it could be: mkisofs -v -iso-level 4 -l -N -D -d -J -joliet-long -r -volid "Advent6415-WinXP-patch1" -A MKISOFS -sysid "Win32" -b cdboot.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -allow-multidot -hide cdboot -hide boot.catalog -o Advent6415-WinXP-patch1.iso See more here: http://reboot.pro/9696/ AND here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-338906.html "Microsoft Corporation.img" could be another problem (the space in it and the mixed mode CAPITAL and small letters). Rename it to "cdboot.bin". All in all your command line (still in Windows) could be: mkisofs -v -iso-level 4 -l -D -d -J -joliet-long -r -volid "Advent6415-WinXP-patch1" -A MKISOFS -sysid "Win32" -b cdboot.bin -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -allow-multidot -hide cdboot -hide boot.catalog -o Advent6415-WinXP-patch1.iso You will have to verify if the particular MKISOFS you are using supports the used options. The page you quoted says: You seemingly did not use the -N, nor the -relaxed-filenames nor the -d -D ! If you check *any* tutorial about re-creating a Windows XP INSTALL disk after having slipstramed a service pack with mkisofs, you will see how the mentioned switches are always present: http://www.g-loaded.eu/2007/04/25/how-to-create-a-windows-bootable-cd-with-mkisofs/ http://sysblogd.wordpress.com/2008/04/23/how-to-build-a-windows-xp-sp3-integrated-installation-cd/ http://www.montanalinux.org/SlipstreamWithLinux.html jaclaz

Set aside legal implications (about License), the answer is Yes/No. http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html Yes, generally speaking it is possible but No, it depends greatly on the specific way the Recovery Disk is made. The "proper" way is to install to the 7096 from a "full" (and legally Licensed) source, then create a Recovery CD/DVD for it. jaclaz