jaclaz

Let's (for the moment) assume that you have NOT this problem. What makes you think that an OS like (I presume) XP (or anyway any of the NT family) will be able to boot on different hardware without SERIOUS changes to it's settings (drivers)? Normally an OS configured on a given hardware CANNOT be booted successfully on different hardware. When it happens, IF it happens it is more a "collision" or coincidence than anything else. More over there are high probabilities that once an attempt to boot has been made on the "new" hardware, the OS won't be able to boot again on the "old" hardware. You might need (as said set apart the problem you are currently facing) a completely different approach. jaclaz

A side question then, what kind of backup do you trust ? Tape, removable media ? Also NEVER trust a tape. Also NEVER trust a CD/DVD. The only real solution is REDUNDANCY: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundancy_(engineering) Let's say that you have in a given timeframe, say three years, the same probability of a failure for *any* magnetical or optical backup media. Let's assume that every 100 media (CD/DVD, tapes or hard disks) you have an average of 5 "total" failures in the given timeframe, a 5% probability. The consequence of one failure if only one "original" exists, is obviously (partial or total) data loss in 100% of cases, i.e. you have 5% probabilty of losing data. 1 original + 1 backup probabilities are not 50% of 5% i.e. 2.5%, but rather around 0.05x0.05=0,0025 or 0,25% 1 original + 1 backup + 1 copy of backup probabilities are not 33% of 5% i.e. around 1.65%, but rather around 0.05x0.05x0.05=0,000125 or 0,025% See last example here: http://www.weibull.com/hotwire/issue25/hottopics25.htm In my experience Optical media like CD/DVD have shown (if properly stored, i.e. not overheated/exposed to sun, and possibly held vertically in their case) a relatively high level of reliability, definitely higher than tapes (which in my personal experience have always been a most frightful nightmare, in practice NEVER actually working when needed ). But again, you should use some burning app with redundancy/error correction, examples: Commercial: http://www.infinadyne.com/accuburn-r.html Freeware/Open Source: http://dvdisaster.net/en/ Hard disks are pretty fine too (besides being more handy). BE AWARE of the "false" security a RAID 5 may provide: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2003-December/msg01731.html Of course it depends on the actual value you give to your data, as a RAID 10 solution is costly, and actually more aimed to "no downtime" than to "data integrity", but having two copies (besides the "original") of all meaningful data is doable by almost everyone, point is that most people are on the extremes of the line: some simply do not backup "anything" (until it is too late ) some backup "everything" (with an unneeded amount of time for the process and money for the media that is very high) Very few do the "right thing" (IMHO): have meaningful data backed up with redundancy (example: work data, family pictures and movies, etc.) simply ignore "expendable" items, (example: programs, commercial movies, songs, anything that can be replaced or procured anew IF needed) If some common sense is used, you will find out that the actual UNreplaceble things amount to a fraction of the contents of your hard disk, so everyone can afford to have this relatively small amount of data properly saved (TWICE). jaclaz

Sure , most people have not much fantasy when naming folders.... OT, and JFYI, a few people actually find FUN using malformed names : jaclaz

Wrong question. Hard disks know nothing about time passing. SMART know even less. To a hard disk 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, 1 hour, 1 minute or 1 second are just the same thing: 1 unit. SMART is trying to tell you that probably (but NOT definitely) and judging from what happened lately inside the HD, it is possible that in 1 (or very few) units your hard drive will die on you. Historically SMART has a correct prection ratio (accuracy of actual consequences derived from SMART warnings) very, and I mean VERY near 0% (zero), meaning that I have seen disks with SMART nagging about above thresholds error whirling away for years without ANY problem and disks 100% OK that failed less than 1 hour later. BUT sector reallocation is the single SMART parameter that apparently can be trusted to a certain extent. See the known google study: http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf And anyway, why risking? Get another hard disk, NOW, image the old disk to it, re-initialize the old disk with it's manufacturer utility, use the old one ONLY for "tertiary" (i.e. third item or second copy ) in your backup setup. It is possible that for this it will work allright for a few more years, but don't trust it (actually NEVER trust a disk drive). jaclaz

Yes, guess why at first boots you get a nagging reminder about making the CD/DVD's? (you know the one that pi§§es you off and that you check to never show again?) Even better than the above would be to buy PC's that come with either "full" software and OS media or with a pre-made recovery media. And an even better one would be to make yourself an image of the disk. Back to your problem: It is possible that the Recovery partition contents are still "OK" (at least before you changed something in it) but *something* minor - but stil needed - has gone beserk, like the actual MBR that loads the partition or the bootsector of the recovery partition or even a small "tag file" somewhere. No way to know. Please note that the OP that started this thread had an HP with Vista installed, yours has XP MCE, they "behave" differently as OS, it is probable that also the recovery system partition uses different versions of the tools or different tools altogether. A good idea would be if you could start a new thread about your issue. Since your XP is booting allright, it will be easier to get some info. Provided that your "XP" drive is C:\ and that the "Recovery partition" is D:\, open a command prompt and run in it: DIR D: /S>C:\HP_MCE.DIR Compress the resulting file C:\HP_MCE.DIR into a .zip archive and attach the archive to your post. Additionally get HDhacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ and use it to backup the MBR (first sector of \\.\PhysicalDrive) and the bootsectors/PBR of partitions C:\ and D:\ (first sector of each \\.\Logicaldrive). Also add these three files to the .zip archive. Maybe with this data we can find the "culprit" or find an alternative way to actually start the recovery process. As said, a good idea would be - if you have this possibility - to make a full, dd-like image of the whole disk (better be safe than sorry) in order to be able, should things go worse that they are, to get back safely to current situation. jaclaz

That's strange. On my XP machine I can have directories containing ";" in the name, "forbidden" characters are: \ / : * ? " < > | And this is confirmed here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/177506/en-us though the ";" is NOT in the list of "allowed". jaclaz

Cannot say, there are NO specs on those pages, you want a "3.3V" TTL cable and NOT a "5 V" one, read, AGAIN, READ ME FIRST: point #10 AND FGA'S: point #6 BUT, the PL2303 series of chips appear to be 3.3V: ask the seller to confirm it is 3.3 and NOT 5 V jaclaz

First thing, if you have the option, CREATE the CD/DVD's. You were NOT supposed to make partition active, using attrib, etc. The "partition cannot be found" means, strangely enough , that the partition has not been found (this can happen for a number of reasons, among which somethng - even accidental that changed the partition ID or a "tag" file in it or it's volume name, or whatever). Since you semingly CAN make the CD/DVD,s do them, NOW, it may be your last and ONLY possibility. jaclaz

I guess that the question was "can you post a snippet of the AutoIt code you have in WinsetupfromUSB (or make a selfstanding little app)?" @kadetov1 Some info is here, though not really "finalized" AFAICU: jaclaz

You are welcome , but as said, stil a lot of work (error trapping) is needed. What if the user just hits [ENTER]? What if he enters "a", "b" (or "micky mouse" or "goofy" ) ? You do understand that the batch changes current directory to <driveroot>\projects\ and "never goes back", right? jaclaz

Wouldn't "tokens=* delims=" or "delims=" be better? I mean, we don't know if any dir has ";" in it's name.... http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ntfortokens.php jaclaz

How MANY results do you expect? I mean like: a handful less than ten between ten and 99 infinite In the meantime a couple notes. What is the %CD%? Since you are looking ONLY for directories, you should use the /AD switch: DIR /b /AD and maybe also the /s one, as this way you will get a "full path" as reply You cannot "feed a list" to SET /P! You don't need to create a temporary file, this should work: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION CLS cd \. cd projects SET My_path=%~dp0 SET My_search="*%**" :loop SET /A My_counter=0 SET MY_ DIR "%My_search%" /AD /b >nul 2>&1 IF %ERRORLEVEL%==1 ECHO NOT FOUND&GOTO :EOF FOR /F %%A in ('DIR "%My_search%" /AD /b' ) DO ( SET /A My_counter+=1 ECHO !My_counter! - %%A&SET My_dir_!My_counter!=%%A ) SET /p My_choice=Please input number of directory: IF NOT %My_choice% LEQ %My_counter% ECHO Wrong, last dirnum is %My_counter%&PAUSE&GOTO :loop ECHO You chose directory !My_dir_%My_choice%! SET MY_ Mind you only a rough sketch, some more serious error control is needed if it is to go into the hands of "final users". The ERRORLEVEL check can be avoided (and thus the double DIR command) if you check the output of the DIR command when NO item is found, in your language. jaclaz

Sorry, but it is stronger than me , two possible scenarios for the future.... http://www.marriedtothesea.com/ jaclaz

Ok, got it Reading around some more, it appears that CC1H should not be affected by BSY or LBA.0. So I'm in the wrong thread, sorry about that. What else can I do? What does that clicking mean, what's the disk trying to do at that time? I'm thinking that there is still hope of data recovery with a spinning rotor and a PCB detected by BIOS. I'll try to find a relevant thread.. if anyone has suggestions, please direct me. Thank you. PS: I cannot afford the professional services from Seagate, so I'm gonna try to do it myself. No ideas, sorry. The fact that you cannot "talk" to the PCB should mean that the PCB has some problems (alt least in the TTL serial module), so you have to try to change it, only you cannot do it as a DYI job, and you need anyway to have someone with the proper knowledge/tools to get the data from the eprom on your PCB and put them on the replacement one or physically desolder and re-solder the EPROM. I wouldn't trust the "CC1H1" is not affected. In some cases the procedure to fix the BSY or LBA0 has been reported to anyway reset *something*. Compare with READ-ME-FIRST point #1 (last sentence of "FOREWORD"): Essentially if you can perform the fix, it may solve the problem nonetheless (or it may be irrelevant) but curretnly you CANNOT perform the fix since you cannot talk to the disk. WHICH other "working hard disk" did you try? Same exact model (7200.11)? The cable may be able to talk to the other HD and may have problems with the settings needed for the 7200.11. Or you may have had a "bad connection" somehow. Trying once again to get to the prompt is advised, but if you cannot you are pretty much stuck wothout "professional" help. jaclaz

READ this sticky : AND the two posts just above yours. jaclaz

See here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/datetiment.php Depending on how "universal" you want the solution to be, there are solutions anging from very simple to very complex. A simple one, only valid for your example/language/regional setting could be: FOR /F "tokens=2" %%A IN ("%Date%") DO ECHO %%A Another one is: CALL :SUB %Date% .... GOTO :EOF .... :SUB ECHO %2 GOTO :EOF jaclaz

Using the EXACT procedure for the 7200.11 is POINTLESS. You have a 7200.12 drive. They are DIFFERENT. Trying using the given procedure for the 7200.12 , but as said I have NO way to know if it is possible that it works on your drive. And obviously you risk something by doing something that is UNTESTED. jaclaz

Sure , in thebaz's case there is NO WAY it can be the TVS diode, but he asked about the video, which is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the problem he is experiencing, and I provided some explanation about the latter. Three separate questions asked/points raised: My question is could the drive have the same problem as the 7200.11 series drive and respond to the same solution? Also, did it make any difference the 7200.11 fix if the drive was partitioned? I also saw a video on you-tube, , where the guy had a blown diode and removed it to retrieve his data. I am not sure why he didn't replace the diode or how he knew that that was the problem, so I am very cautious about trying that fix. I hope someone can help, and thanks for the great resource. Three replies: Maybe, nothing sure about it, given link to possible solution UNVERIFIED/UNCONFIRMED. No. Explanation given (about what the guy did and why it worked for him in his case.) jaclaz

To troubleshoot a problem with a USB Mass Storage controller? jaclaz

The video *should* be about removing a TVS diode. Basically HD boards have two main DC "rails", a 5V and a 12V one. In order to protect the board components from overvoltage, spikes, surges or whatever, each of these are protected by a TVS diode. This diodes are sensible to some of these and when "triggered" by such an event they simply "blow" shorting the + of the rail to ground. At this point most PSU's protections will shut down power. (a non protected PSU - like the power adapters of most external enclosure use - will simply blow instead ) It is intended as a form of protection for the most delicate components of the HD, once the diode is shorted, besides replacing it with a new one you can just remove it, this will aloow "normal operation" (but you won't have anymore protection from spikes/sourges/etc.) There isn't AFAIK a "known/tested/retested" solution for the 7200.12, but there is however this Russian page: http://hddhelp.com.ua/7200-12.htm via google translate is quite readable. A procedure very similar to that for the 7200.11 is used. jaclaz

You did not mention it , but the usual convention goes along the lines of: 4.00 ->4.01 minor release 4.99->5.00 major release so I did. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning From the mouth of the wolf: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0.1/releasenotes/ Compare with: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0/releasenotes/ jaclaz

Just out of curiosity , are you going to start a new thread for each and every minor release of Firefox? Wouldn't have been more logic to continue here? : jaclaz

Something like this? : http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Telephony-SMS-GSM/Easy-SpeakerPhone.shtml Or this (seemingly "out of production"/dead site): WillowPhone Here: http://trace.wisc.edu/computer/win95/win95sha.html (rigorously UNTESTED by me) jaclaz

...exception made for the 7/knoppix one, I presume Some "as plain as possible" instructions can be read here (the place is particularly nice as it has everything "categorized" correctly): http://www.thpc.info/dualboot.html you are in this "main" category: http://www.thpc.info/dual/dual_xp_2k_nt.html But you will need ANYWAY to read the 9x forum to solve possible problems with "lots of RAM". "huge hard disks" and the like jaclaz

Which game is it? Games tend to be problematic in Virtual Machnes, as they often use "undocumented" fetures or "shortcuts" to make things like video frames faster. Was it DOS or Windows? How much RAM have you got in the VM? "Memory" in a view similar to this: jaclaz