jaclaz

Yep. Additionally, recent reports imply that BOOTMGR versions *all* work, or at least we have here an example where the Vista SP0 version is used to initiate the install of many later versions: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8043 https://sites.google.com/site/rmprepusb/tutorials/how-to-create-a-usb-drive-that-will-install-vista-win7-and-server-2008 OT, but not much a nice BCD editor can be found here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10003&hl= jaclaz

Well, NO. "According to Microsoft" tells nothing, WHERE have you read this piece of info? (link please) You might be confusing a "by design" issue from Microsoft that has been by now solved by most Video card manufacturers with their "special" drivers: http://www.realtimesoft.com/multimon/faq.asp WHICH EXACT notebook make/model is it? WHICH EXACT video card has it? It is very probable that with this info it will be possible to find a suitable driver. jaclaz

You are supposing "wrong". BOOTMGR is a BOOT ManaGeR, the one that comes with Vista , Server 2008 and Windows 7. Various versions of BOOTMGR are backwards compatible. The BOOTMGR file is run from the bootsector of the CD/DVD and reads it's settings from the BCD store a file that is usually in \boot\BCD. You normally have only one BOOTMGR and only one BCD, this latter with multiple choices. READ the initial post of this thread, essentially it tells how to edit the contents of the boot\BCD to have in it the multiple choices. jaclaz

@Bloubul JFYI: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=145646 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=145646&st=5 jaclaz

No need to. Hard disks and optical media work differently and you probably thought to estend your experience with CD/DVD's to actual hard disks.... jaclaz

Any reference to backup this statement? (Last time I checked outer tracks were WAY faster than inner ones , and data was allocate form the outside to the inside ) http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/tracksZBR-c.html http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/244351-14-partion-hard-drive-performance http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~kubitron/courses/cs252-F00/lectures/lec20-disks.pdf jaclaz

IMHO the easiest way to use Nero is NOT using it at all. Get IMGBURN (Freeware): http://www.imgburn.com/ Follow instructions: http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=61 jaclaz

SRDISK: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=109574 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=109574&st=13 http://sourceforge.net/projects/srdisk/ jaclaz

For simply splitting/combining pages, check this also: http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ And everything here may also interest you: http://www.paehl.de/pdf/ (which include a GUI for PDFTK): http://www.paehl.de/pdf/gui_pdftk.html Though personally I find this one more handy: http://angusj.com/pdftkb/ And yes, if you are not fast enough in making a decision I'll probably increase the amount of your research by tenfold jaclaz

Something you might want to have a look at: http://www.nativewindsofmontana.com/software/tomahawk.html http://www.nativewindsofmontana.com/software/pdfwizard.html jaclaz

What about circumventing them rules ? Example: boot from the stick a PE of some kind (remapping the HDD's with grub4dos) and install (still from the OEM CD) with WINNT32.EXE What about simply cheating ? Example: boot from the stick (remapping the HDD's with grub4dos) and start the install (still from the OEM CD) chainloading the SETUPLDR.BIN in CD's \I386\ , thus bypassing the BOOTFIX.BIN (please read as "The thing that makes the Press any key... message appear") jaclaz

Are you really sure that making a Partition changes the MBR (and NOT the PBR, i.e. Partition Boot Record or bootsector)? The 2K/XP/2003 PBR or bootsector invokes NTLDR. The Vista /2008/7 PBR or bootsector invokes BOOTMGR. Here: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/install_windows.htm#windows1 http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/install_windows.htm#windows3 http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/boot.htm#vista http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/boot.htm#linux etc., etc. jaclaz

Maybe there is a omission in: http://www.robotshop.ca/sfe-db9-rs232-shifter.html Try reading it as: Had you actually READ the read-me-first: (point #11) you might have had NOT this problem. jaclaz

Sure, that is an EXAMPLE. It has *some* PATHs checked. You still need to add yourself the checks to avoid it running where you want it NOT to run, if for any reason: "%PROGRAMFILES%" does not expand to "C:\Program Files" (like a non-English version of the OS or different PATH settings) or "%SYSTEMROOT%" does not expand to "C:\Windows" (like running the batch in a booted PE) etc., etc. What if you try googling for self-delete batch? http://www.catch22.net/tuts/selfdel WARNING, these kind of things will SELF-DESTRUCT (and it won't even take 5 seconds to do so) jaclaz

yes, but that is an EXAMPLE, post describing WHAT you see when trying booting from USB. Post also detailing: WHICH tool/utility/program did you use toe Partition and Format the USB stick and make it bootable. WHICH settings/options did you use with the above utility/whatever. Please do REPLY to the posted requests for info, WITHOUT posting other questions. The general idea: you provide info and report about what is happening and what you did and what you want to do. a willing helping member tries to understand from remote and based ONLY on what you report what is happening. he/she may need to ask you further info, again,we make the questions, you try replying them. IF such willing member manages to understand what the problem is he may be able to give you a solution. Compare with: http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html Ow, come on, not that difficult, you try to boot from it, if it works,it is bootable, if it doesn't it is NOT. Now, please READ my previous post and try doing what I suggested you in it, and report. jaclaz

Yes. Missing question: NO. I also have a CD-ROM drive that doesn't work and goes clickity-clickity, but I DO NOT post on a thread that is dedicated to: BSY on 7200.11 LBA0 on 7200.11 ONLY. I think I'll delete the READ-ME-FIRST : judging from it's utility and the times it is actually read FIRST, noone will miss it. Your drive is NOT a 7200.11 AND it doesn't suffer from the BSY or LBA0. Please start a new thread APTLY titled or post in the existing 7200.10 thread BlouBul was so kind as to find for you. jaclaz

Good. There is NO 'chainloader' command involved and definitely not a MBR of another partition. That is an entry in BOOT.INI. It doesn't exist such a thing as "the MBR of another partition", it may exist the "PBR of another partition" (i.e. "bootsector of another partition") or "the MBR of another disk" (that I doubt will work). It seems like BOOTMGR will read a BOOT.INI contents and add it's entry to the BCD entries (or you can add manually the "legacy" entry to the BCD): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=12557&st=7 What is not clear is whether it needs a NTLDR also in order to boot an entry (exception made for "arcpath ones"). The safer/easiest would be to add an entry in BCD for grub4dos' grldr.mbr and add it, together with grldr and menu.lst to the drive. Once in grub4dos you can boot any Linux, using the old (and nowadays deprecated) chainloading of bootsector method or the more elegant and less prone to error direct loading of the kernel and initrd. Here: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/install_windows.htm#windows3 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=66 jaclaz

Here there is no problem with numbers, it must be still some form of communication problem. You DO NOT want to change the (head) 254 to 255 You DO NOT want to change the (head) 254 to 256 You want to change the (cylinder) 4079 to 255, etc. The first line, that is now: 0/1/1/4079/254/63 should become: 0/1/1/255/254/63 Second line, that is now: 4080/0/1/8159/254/63 should become: 256/0/1/511/254/63 Third line, that is now: 8160/0/1/12239/254/63 should become: 512/0/1/767/254/63 Fourth line, that is now: 12240/0/1/16319/254/63 should become: 768/0/1/1023/254/63 I have no other way to explain it. You DO NOT change Heads. You DO NOT change Sectors. You ONLY change Cylinders. You already have (for the first time) all values "white" (which is good ), BUT currently you created in Partition Logic 4 (four) partitions around 2 Gb (4080x16x63x512) which resulted in RPM in 4 (four) partitions around 32 Gb (4080x255x63x512). Since you are experimenting with partition sizes around 2 Gb, you want to obtain them in RPM too, before attempting using bigger sizes. You can simulate the behaviour using the spreadsheet "Automatic", you try the sizes you want, by inputting them in cells U24:U27, in the lower half you see how Partition Logic will deal with them, in the upper part you see the corresponding Cylinder (and NOT Head, and NOT Sector) values you have to change in RPM. You don't need to be good with numbers, nor even to understand the mathematics arithmetics behind the set of instructions, you simply have to follow a simple set of instructions EXACTLY. If you don't understand this simple set of instructions, say so, try to communicate which parts you don't understand, and I may be able to further explain those parts in more detail. jaclaz

Lenovo's are tricky. They often use a non-standard geometry in BIOS, that can lead, EXPECIALLY if using the HP USB utility or petousb to NOT booting. Typically a nx240x63 geometry instead of the "normal" mx255x63 First thing to try is to use RMPREPUSB to do the partitioning/formatting of the stick. http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7739 Next, once and if the above failed, you should make a copy of the MBR (use HDhacker to copy first sector of Physicaldrive), compress it in a .zip archive and post it. http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ You should try simply making the USB stick bootable with RMPREPUSB and try booting from it, and post EXACTLY what happens if it fails booting, like: a completely blank (black) screen a flashing cursor in top left a "j"or g" an error of some kind (post the EXACT error message) jaclaz

Let's make a deal. If you post how you use the 'chainloader' command in XP to pass control to the mbr of another partition, I'll show you how to do it under Vista :ph34r:/2008/7. jaclaz

WHAT kind of question is this? OF COURSE they are THERE.(with that method) OF COURSE they are NOT HERE(in the current version of WinsetupfromUSBwithGUI) jaclaz

That's exactly the reason for the small spreadsheet. That is to simulate the behaviour and let you fine tune the sizes. It's not that difficult, you enter numbers in the "Automatic" sheet until you have filled the disk as you like (making sure that values are multiple of 4080). You see how the result should look in Partition Logic. Then you enter those values in Partition Logic. Then you run RPM and change the cylinders number as seen in the top part of the spreadsheet. Do the test with the base "4080/4080/4080/4080" set. The values you should change in RPM are: 4079->255 4080->256 8159->511 8160->512 12239->767 12240->768 16319->1023 jaclaz

I'll try again. In the "top" line you always enter the MINIMUM value supplied to you by Partition Logic. In the "bottom" line you always enter 4080c (i.e. the size of the partition) that will be: top-bottom 0-4080c 4080-4080c 8160-4080c 12240-4080c OR you enter in the Top the Minimum value supplied to you by Partition Logic and in the bottom the progressive End sector: top-bottom 0-4079 4080-8159 8160-12239 12240-16319 In other words, since cylinders are numbered from 0: (4079+1)-0=4080c (8159+1)-4080=4080c (12239+1)-8160=4080c (16319+1)-12240=4080c I know it is not easy to make calculation with 0 based things, as we are used to use 1 based objects in everyday life, but this is how it works with CHS, think about this: you cannot have anything less than 0/0/1 (first sector of first head on first cylinder, i.e. the MBR, i.e. sector 0 LBA). You cannot have more than the max number of heads (let's say 255). Last head (since they are numbered from 0) is then 254. You cannot have more than the max number of cylinders (let's say you have a small hard disk with just 1 cylinder). This small hard disk will start at 0/0/1 and end at 0/254/63. Since we know that it is exactly 1 cylinder in size, you have to use the formula: (0+1)-0=1 to calculate it's size in cylinders. Get SPREAD32 to try using the spreadsheet: http://www.byedesign.co.uk/ jaclaz

If it's not a trade secret , can you name it (including it's EXACT version)? And also post some details of the actual problem you are having? It is possible that there is a "specific" solution for the "specific" problem you have (completely UNconnected with an "universal" uninstaller for Win9x programs). Or, if you prefer, it is possible that you are "slipping" on a chocolate covered banana : http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.html jaclaz

YES. http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/questions-with-yes-or-no-answers.html or NO? Can you explain WHAT you would like to do? jaclaz