jaclaz

The topic is not dead. No "real" news on the Excel thingy, I have found (on another board) a willing member that proposed to correct/better/refine it. Unfortunately, although he produced a very good work, expecially in correcting a few formulas that were wrong, he changed it so deeply (and in some cases IMHO senselessly) that the final result (which is not actually final anyway) has diverged from the original goal I had set (in my perverted mind) and is IMHO as-is UNusable/UNuseful. Due to the divergencies between us the development has stopped abruptly. In the meantime and as "side-apps", I have developed two pretty much useless spreadsheets. One is the (hopefully) final version of the thingy discused here: http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=2134 And the other one is simply a calculator for Volume Serial. I wish to thank for the insights Craig Wilson, Author of this nice .pdf: http://www.digital-detective.co.uk/ http://www.digital-detective.co.uk/documents/Volume%20Serial%20Numbers.pdf In the tradition of my half-@§§ed spreadsheets, they are protected (to avoind unwantingly typing where you really shouldn't) but with blank password and there is NOT any actual instruction on the use of them, basically if you cannot figure out what they are for and how they work it means you don't *need* to use 'em . An interesting side-note is that I wasn't able to enter the (rather complex) formula in cells B17 and B33 of "volser.xls" in Excel (Office "XP") and as well I cannot actually edit it in this version of Excel. Using Spread32, in all the beauty of it's 1,458,176 bytes, I had no problems whatsoever. jaclaz date_from_volser.zip Volser.zip

Why not an IDE adapter? http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/AEUDMACF.asp http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adidecf.asp I mean nowadays (IF your motherboard still has an IDE/PATA port) it is likely it is unused and you can use it for the CF card. Or meet this thingy here: http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/udd2.asp jaclaz

colore, you seem to miss the basics on how drivers in XP are installed. Basically XP when installed/booted makes a quick check of the hardware. Every hardware (including the SATA Disk Controller) is identified by a device ID. Then XP looks among the drivers available to see if it can finds a driver for that specific device ID it has detected. If such driver is found, the corresponding driver is installed, no other device driver (for different device ID's) is ever installed. jaclaz

Or maybe the solution would be simpy to provide the actual redistributable utilities ONLY? And rest assured there are already some - IMNSHO completely out of their mind - but otherwise very good guys - that do support in strange ways that WAREZ release. jaclaz

What is the EXACT name (and full path of it) of the file you are having problems with? It may well be an invalid filename. jaclaz

NO. The "removable" bit is a flag set in the USB stick or hd controller. DOS and Linux will simply ignore it. Windows NT family of OS will use it and decide whether the device is "Fixed" or "Removable". There are NO ways to have a Windows NT family OS detect the thingy as "Fixed" if the bit in the controller is SET as "Removable" if not the suggested ways: a filter driver flipping the bit in th econtroller through it's "Manufacturer Production Tool" or utility jaclaz

Besides distributing a mini edition of XP (actually a pre-built PE 1.x) . (which still is a Copyright infringement or however an infringement of the MS EULA) Until there are UNredistributable files inside it, that will remain WAREZ, IMNSHO. jaclaz

Not with the available Freeware Sysinternals version, which is READ ONLY. @JorgeA JFYI you can also have a grub4dos (or isolinux/memdisk) based CD holding as many Floppy images as they fit inside it and boot them as memory (or directly) mapped floppies. jaclaz

DO NOT use WAREZ. If the disk has a "semi-stuck" spindle or anyway the motor using too much amperes, connecting it to a desktop SATA (actually to the desktop PSU) may help BUT, once it is connected to the SATA it may as well prevent the Desktop from booting. I have seen often laptop disk drives not being able to spin-up in a USB case if a Y USB cable is not used. (2x500 mA instead of 500mA) Also if a semi-stuck spindle is the case, sometimes putting the disk drive in a vertical position may lessen a little bit the initial force needed to spin-up, this has proved more useful than you might think. If you have the disk drive in your hand it is usually easy to feel if it is spinning or not, thanks to the slight gyroscopic effect it creates, see here: In this case it would be better to use the SATA connection as if it was an e-sata (there is no actual difference between SATA and e-SATA if not the connector) and connect it after the OS is booted. Generally speaking a SATA connection is more "direct" than a USB-SATA one and this may provide some enhanced access to the device (as an example the possibility to read the SMART data, but since that S.M.A.R.T. data makes NO sense whatsoever/has no practical use - I personally call it D.U.M.B. instead ) but I don't think it will make a difference, if the device is not detected through the USB converter/adapter. jaclaz

But there is Winvi too : http://www.winvi.de/en/ jaclaz

With all due respect, using any MS-DOS earlier than 5.0 is asking for trouble. 6.22 is better, and of course 7.x's are even better. Strangely enough they are backwards compatible at - say 99.99% - so you have to provide some substantial reason to run an earlier version. Yes. There is NO such thing as a NTFS hard disk, there can be a NTFS partition or volume or filesystem, NOT a hard disk. A NTFS partition/volume has in the hard disk MBR a partition ID of 07. DOS will think (it depends on the version) either that it is an unknown partition or that it is an HPFS (anyone remembers OS/2?) or a NTFS one and WON'T touch it. Mind you that FDISK or other partition utilities may be able to delete it nonetheless. If you use a decently recent MS-DOS (the 7.x and 8.x work, I cannot say the 6.22) you can use the NTFS4DOS driver to access R/W a NTFS partition or use the old NTFSDOS Sysinternals driver to aceess it Read Only. Earlier DOSes won't even be able to see/access properly partition types: http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html Please note how *any partition* created/formatted in XP and later won't use anymore types: (in practice the ONLY partitions types that DOS pre 7.x can use (besides the "historical" 01 and 04), so you will have problems NOT only with NTFS access) Rather than dosbox, you can use Qemu (+Qemu Manager) or any other VM on modern hardware. jaclaz

I find it to be a little reductive to "catalog" lyx as a "pdf creation tool". You want a Word Processor (or "document processor") with .pdf exporting ( or printing) facility. Besides the "normal" OpenOffice/LibreOffice Write, you can use *any* Word Processor you like (even if it has no PDF export) in conjunction with a .pdf printer app. The "difficult part" is normally the "training" of the "other user" on the specific word processor. jaclaz

Most probably NOT what you asked, but anyway: http://barnyard.syr.edu/~vefatica/#KTIMES regtime: http://code.google.com/p/winforensicaanalysis/downloads/list What about using a .dll provided by the good MS guys? http://reboot.pro/11212/ jaclaz

Only seemingly OT and just for the fun of it : http://reboot.pro/15207/ Generally speaking mingw compiled apps are far "better" (in the sense of more compact, more easibly deployable) than Cygwin ones, though. The main thing IMHO is, if you are going to distribute the Source code, that you also detail WHICH exact compiler you used and the exact way the thingy has to be compiled. Whenever possible try NOT to use a zillion of stupid do-it-all .dll's. jaclaz

What about checking Service Start settings in the Registry? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310123/en-us jaclaz

See if this works: http://www.stevemiller.net/puretext/ Would this help? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Layer_for_Unicode http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=4237 jaclaz

I recommend NOT using WAREZ. @silvias Generally speaking, connecting the HD to a PC through a USB adapter will NOT "lock" the PC. Whether the hard disk will be detected or not is anouther thing. In your case CrystalDiskInfo is as useful as a bycicle to a fish. jaclaz

Scintilla (Scite). What else? : http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html And: http://www.distasis.com/cpp/scitetip.htm jaclaz

You may want to have a try to diagnose the issue with the free version of SEDIV: http://sediv2008.narod.ru/ http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsediv2008.narod.ru%2F&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=it&ie=UTF-8 but cannot say if it is now compatible with 7200.12 or more generally if it can be of any use for the specific issue. More generally "intermittent" errors are a BIG PITA, and they are particularly difficult to troubleshoot. While you have removed the PCB do check contacts, just in case: jaclaz

Well, not for me, unless it is a VERY OBVIOUS problem in the .vbs, it is UNlikely I can help you with it . But I am pretty sure that someone will try and help you with it, so why don't you provide the files anyway jaclaz

Just an idea, but maybe the "special" drivers are "normal" drivers that some senseless developer nicely wrapped in a .Net based installer. I.e. maybe it is possible to extract from the "special" driver file/setup some actual "normal" driver file compatible with the $oem$ approach. jaclaz

Cannot say if better or even just "good" , I'm only highlighting for you the contents of the referenced method (that I repeat I have NO way to know if it will work for you, nor - more generally - if it works at all ): http://computersciencelabs.blogspot.com/2011/02/seagate-720012-sim-error-firmware-fault.html Also, even the "known" BSY fix for 7200.11 needs to have the PCB removed (or either set of contacts insulated) so I wonder HOW you ran that fix. jaclaz

See if this: http://www.codeguru.com/cpp/w-p/clipboard/article.php/c3009 or this: http://www.informatics-consulting.ch/software/cbtext.htm can do. Or see if you can do something with AutoHotKey: http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/topic8397.html There is this one also, but needs .Net http://www.pastecopy.net/ jaclaz

Not actually a PC, but related. Very old, small external "particular" case salvaged from a dustbin (literally). It appeared as a Toshiba external case to add network connectivity to some very early portable (we are talking of 1992 or 1993, so the thingy probably dated back to pre-1990). Apart from a strange connector with a zillion pins, and a huge card with a number of IC's (some even on sockets ) inside the case there was a small PSU capable of giving BOTH +5V and +12V with enough amps. Having already: a number of SCSI devices a SCSI PC-Card a Notebook I decided to make the thingy into an external SCSI enclosure. After MUCH work with hacksaw, drill, files, etc. to fit in the case a CD, a ZIP and a hard disk, it was finally ready for the switch-on test. The only little problem was that during the various disassemble/re-assemble/see if it fits/modify/etc. I had switched the PSU input voltage selector from 250 V to 110 V . A nice litlle flash and bang later I had a nice enclosure perfectly adapted to host the drives BUT with a non-standard burned PSU..... jaclaz

Giving up is NEVER an option! jaclaz