jaclaz

It must have been the ONLY occasion where MS was actually ahead of their time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_do_you_want_to_go_today The campaign was one of the least successful one in the history of advertising (when compared with the awful amount of money wasted on it), it's fun that after 15 years a single "estimator" comes out.... Though it did produce some nice ideas: jaclaz

Chipset? Or SATA drivers? UNIATA: http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/ should support ICH5 on NT 4.00.... ...of course your mileage may vary.... jaclaz

That drive is going/gone. What you report looks a lot like a false contact of some kind but could also be something inside a chip of the PCB or a thermal protection. Your report is missing some details, I take that you try doing a CHKDSK or something like that on the drive and after a few minutes the drive simply disconnects itself. If you just attach the drive to a system and DO NOT access it intensively, it remains connected for a longer period of time? Or does it disconnects ONLY when the scan reaches a certain area? If you have or can get your hands on a contactless infrared themometer (possibly with a laser pointer), which temperatures do you read in different areas/parts of the PCB? Example of an el-cheapo one that would do: http://cgi.ebay.com/IR-Infrared-Digital-Thermometer-Laser-ECA01-/170469262751?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b0c2859f Basically anything above, say, 60°÷65° is likely to be creating the problem. In any case, you should (assuming that you have some DATA on it): image the drive as-is (suitable tool reference in given link) add EXTRA cooling, like a fan, to the drive to see if it allows longer "connected time"/"bigger chunks" Check this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=144232 jaclaz

Then it's either: bad motor bad PCB (in the motor regulating part) stuck heads or bearing (statistically the most likely, expecially if it was external unit. It usually means it was dropped) Nothing you can fix I am afraid. DO NOT EVEN THINK of doing this: http://forum.hddguru.com/barracuda-7200-fell-plates-won-spin-t7040.html You are welcome. jaclaz

Please name a drive model that spins BOTH clockwise and counterclockwise. The repeated "bzzzt" sounds you hear could be the heads desperately trying (and completely failing) to calibrate and find a track. But it's not clear if the drive spins at all. Easy test, holding the drive in your hand, with NO power attached, then try slowly rotating it from a horizontal position to a vertical one and continue until you have completely flipped over the drive. Power it up and try doing the same movements, you'll notice immediately (if it is spinning ) a kind of resistance due to the gyroscopic effect of the rotating platter(s). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope Unfortunately, it sounds like it is, which does not necessarily mean that it cannot be repaired, only that it needs diagnosing and repairing tools well above our heads (and pockets) or, simply, not worth it. Most probably you are referring to the TVS diodes. Normally there are two of them, one on the +5V and one on the +12V line, they are there to hopefully protect the PCB components from overvoltage or excessive spikes. The idea is that if something is not "kosher" in the power line, a TVS diode will blow, shorting the +5V or +12V to ground. When they do actually blow, drive: WON'T spin up (not even attempt to) you'll find a short between the +5V or +12V nad ground and your PSU will either self switch off (if auto-protected, like most PC PSU's) or simply blow (if using an el-cheapo external drive power supply) jaclaz

Rest assured, it is NOT! Ideally it should go here: MSFN Forums> Microsoft Software Products - Discussion & Support> Windows XP http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=34 (Since it is a software problem of XP, and not actually a hardware problem) But I guess it's fine , a Mod might want to move it where more appropriate. YES/NO. Meaning yes you can, BUT you will need to have set the hard disk bus in IDE compatibility mode in BIOS. Also there are "cloning" and "cloning" methods, meaning that diferent "cloning" programs/methods may lead to different results. Then, you can install the SATA driver and switch the BIOS: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120444&st=589 Or you can try an offline install of the SATA drivers, some info here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11729&st=0 And here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showforum=43 Sure it will, but that would be a re-install (from scratch). NO, nothing relevant. SATA 1 has a VERY similar speed as to ATAPI/IDE "133", and unless your current drive is an older type, like "100" you won't see a great deal of difference (please read as probably none), it also depnds of the actual hd drive features and of the ability of the motherboard hardware/driver to use them, see previous reference: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120444&st=589 Post details on your intended "cloning" procedure, and we will be able to further assist you... jaclaz

Yep , question now is "can jaclaz's tip be compared to DELL support"? Or is it just a one-time coincidence that the DELL guys are right? jaclaz

.....I got a nicely working, updated, Win95 OSR2 or 2.5.... I'll risk another comparison Win95 OSR 2.5:Win98FE=XP SP2:Vista SP0 jaclaz

So the cable cannot be the problem, right? Your drive is a .ES2, which should mean that it is "tricky business" http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129551 Be very, very, and I mean VERY thorough in checking the PCB (if it resembles one of those for which we do have a picture) AND in identifying the right pads to short. Your mileage may (and will ) vary.... jaclaz

Mind you that it is also possible that the problem is not really in the WinME (I cannot believe I am now saying good things about Windows ME ), there may be historical reasons. When it came out, there was NO actual *reason* for it. The fact that it uses some drivers and mechanism of the NT family is a good thing in theory. But it came out shortly after 2K came out, and shortly before XP. Windows 2K: February 17, 2000 Windows ME: September 14, 2000 Windows XP: October 25, 2001 The installed base at the time was: largely 98 all the rest NT 4.00 Anyone using NT 4.00 migrated to 2K, the few using 98 (that were about to be forced to migrate to ME) either went for 2k (few) or, having heard rumours of XP being in development waited a bit and then went for XP. All the developers coded for either Win9x or for NT, ME being sort of a "hybrid" between the two, with some features (drivers expecially) derived from win2K and most of the actual code derived from 9x, and it is very likely that there was no time for testing adequately apps on this hybrid platform. To this you add that AFAIK the ONLY (say 90%) users of ME were people who got it as OEM OS pre-installed to a "home" machine they bought, most probably not very expert and prone to use "simple" apps and the picture should be clear. I presume that a large part of software that sports compatibility with 98, Me, 2K (and XP) does so because of the reasoning: and that was never tested extensively on ME. I know what I am talking about, I use often when out of office a year 2001 ASUS laptop that came with ME pre-installed. Obviously first thing I did was to install 2K and use it for work. But I do have the ME in dual boot, and since I just use it with the most "basic" apps (and not often ) I never had a problem with it. But I do have experience with other ME equipped PC's, and believe me it was a nightmare, but ultimately the cause of the problems/corruption were due in the majority of cases by senseless installs of crapware by the user or by "highly esteemed" software that was actually NOT compatible with ME. The overall "good name" of an OS sometimes comes from a simplification of data, if you had done some support in a medium firm and your statistics out of 100 calls were: NT 4.00 (3) - ALL solved in less than 5 minutes Win2K (8) - ALL solved in 20 minutes at the most and without need to re-install Win98 (28) - ALL solved in 20 minutes at the most and without need to re-install WinME (61) - of which 25 solved in 20 minutes and 36 in more than 1 hour, needing a re-install from scratch What do you think that the outcome would be? If you additionally know that the firm had: 20 machines with NT 4.00 60 machines with 2K 80 machines with Win98 20 machines with ME it is not a surprise ME has a bad reputation. Please mind that the above data is COMPLETELY faked , but not very far from what happened at the time.... jaclaz

I am pretty sure that cuudulieu will hold the "relata refero": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Relata_refero from a new member at his first post in the highest esteem. jaclaz

Yep, but still it is "negative evidence" (or a hint towards further testing) . I.e. IF no screen is seen on external VGA the probabilities of a failing video card/GPU is very high IF a screen is seen normally on external VGA the probabilities of a failing GPU for the internal display only is fairly low jaclaz

Once solved the Windows Vizta :ph34r:/7 compatibility issue, the problem is most likely in the crap DELL has added/modified to that specific I386 folder. Even for making a PE DELL's builds are reknown to create havoc. It is as well possible that the Servicepack is already integrated. A longer, but maybe necessary approach, check the files: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=91907 jaclaz

OT , but not much . Try this WinExplorer: http://www.quickersoft.com/donkey/ http://www.quickersoft.com/donkey/winexplorer.htm jaclaz

WHICH are the differences (like bootsector invokes IO.SYS and backup_bootsector invokes NTLDR, right? (just to make sure that you actually got the right sectors) like bootsector near the end looking like: 7D7E 03 18 .. 7D80 01 27 0D 0A 49 6E 76 61 6C 69 64 20 73 79 73 74 ....Invalid syst 7D90 65 6D 20 64 69 73 6B FF 0D 0A 44 69 73 6B 20 49 em disk...Disk I 7DA0 2F 4F 20 65 72 72 6F 72 FF 0D 0A 52 65 70 6C 61 /O error...Repla 7DB0 63 65 20 74 68 65 20 64 69 73 6B 2C 20 61 6E 64 ce the disk, and 7DC0 20 74 68 65 6E 20 70 72 65 73 73 20 61 6E 79 20 then press any 7DD0 6B 65 79 0D 0A 00 00 00 49 4F 20 20 20 20 20 20 key.....IO 7DE0 53 59 53 4D 53 44 4F 53 20 20 20 53 59 53 7E 01 SYSMSDOS SYS~. 7DF0 00 57 49 4E 42 4F 4F 54 20 53 59 53 00 00 55 AA .WINBOOT SYS..U. and backup_bootsector looking like: 0170: 4E 54 4C 44 52 20 20 20 20 20 20 00 00 00 00 00 NTLDR ..... 0180: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 0190: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................ 01A0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0D 0A 4E 54 ..............NT 01B0: 4C 44 52 20 69 73 20 6D 69 73 73 69 6E 67 FF 0D LDR is missing.. 01C0: 0A 44 69 73 6B 20 65 72 72 6F 72 FF 0D 0A 50 72 .Disk error...Pr 01D0: 65 73 73 20 61 6E 79 20 6B 65 79 20 74 6F 20 72 ess any key to r 01E0: 65 73 74 61 72 74 0D 0A 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 estart.......... 01F0: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 AC BF CC 00 00 55 AA ..............U. Then you access the disk with HxD, go to the bootsector (absolute 63, logical 0), copy it and paste it over the backup_bootsector (absolute 69, logical 6). BE CAREFUL, you are accessing the disk directly! jaclaz

Boot the laptop. Open it up completely (so that both keyoard and screen are flat on the desk. Switch room light OFF. Get a torch and try putting it at an angle around 5 to 15 degrees to the screen. If you can see a graphic element (like the taskbar, or an icon, or something (I do hope you do not have a completely blank desktop) it's the backlight OR the inverter (if I really had to, I would vote for the inverter ), BUT if you can see nothing and the external VGA doesn't work it may well be the graphical card/GPU , and in most laptops it is integrated on the motherboard. It is essential that you check, re-check and triple check that you are using the right key combination to get the external VGA working (if it does) otherwise you will anyway waste the money for the backlight or the inverter. Poorman's testing: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/09/05/troubleshooting-laptop-with-backlight-failure/ http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2009/05/04/how-test-lcd-screen-inverter-in-laptop/ http://www.fonerbooks.com/test.htm http://www.fonerbooks.com/laptop14.htm Don't forget to check for the "fourth" option: simply the little switch that turns off the LCD when you close the laptop, some contact cleaning spray may do the miracle. Stupid as it seems, see if you can boot some kind of DOS on the laptop, I've seen some screens that do work if no driver for higher resolution is loaded. jaclaz

WHY? Meaning that your problem is that you ran it, most probably without knowing what you were doing and for NO apparent reason. jaclaz

NO prob, BUT : sure it works, if you have the "right" Nokia cable and you find the "right" pinout. AGAIN, READ the read-me-first FIRST, it is there to avoid having yet ANOTHER POST in this thread with the SAME questions, ALREADY answered n times. : Point #10 covers EXACTLY your question. jaclaz

I thought it was a 98SE vs. Me thread, and that you were talking of an updated 98SE. 98SE2Me is a "hybrid", with a "base" 98SE BUT with transplanted relevant parts of Me. (nothing to do with a "plain" 98Se updated) It requires TWO licenses to be "kosher", and is of course not supported by MS, (pleae note the difference between "not anymore supported" and "never supported"). If I am allowed a comparison : 98(SE):XP=Me:Vista The only good thing one can say about Vista is that it somehow forced MS to produce 7 (which is not that bad ). We miss a mature evolution of the DOS based branch, and the thing that mostly resembles it (though of course NOT completely) is 98SE2Me, IMHO. Still IMHO, XP could have been much better had they simply evolved 2K keeping the separation between DOS based (home/fun/single user) and NT based (office/work/multi user) instead of making the one-size-fits-all XP. jaclaz

First: Try opening logical sector 63 of your physical hard disk or sector 0 of the logical drive. Check that it's contents loosely resemble the one on the given page: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/MSWIN41.htm (in other words check that you can read "FAT32" in it) Select it's contents. (one sector) Copy them. Create a new file. Paste to it the contents. Save the file somewhere as "bootsector.dat" Second: Try opening sector 63+6=69 of your hard disk or sector 0+6=6 of the logical drive. Check that it's contents loosely resemble the one on the given page: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/MSWIN41.htm (in other words check that you can read "FAT32" in it) Select it's contents. (one sector) Copy them. Create a new file. Paste to it the contents. Save the file somewhere as "backup_bootsector.dat" Then: Compare the two files "bootsector.dat" and "backup_bootsector.dat": IF no differences are found, the message is related to something else IF any difference is found the two sectors are "out of sync" jaclaz

Neither. 98SE2Me http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=46349 jaclaz

Well, your search-fu is very low. Otherwise you would have found this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=145751 Right know all we know is probably how to kill for good a 5400.6 jaclaz

The whole idea of a read-me-first: is to actually READ it BEFORE posting yet another time the same question, ALREADY answered n times.: WHAT is the difficult part in the above? In other words, this thread is ONLY for 7200.11 and ONLY for the 7200.11 affected by this specific problem. It is not a "miracle cure" for ALL hard disk. It is not a "miracle cure" for ANY problem on ANY hard disk. Will it work on your 7200.12 affected by whatever problem originated by whatever cause? Yes/No. (or if you prefer the answer is "a suffusion of yellow") Start a new thread if you want (hopefully) some support for your problem, but DO NOT expect anything actually tested, reliable or accurate, noone here is a "Hard Disk Expert". Had you spent two minutes in SEARCHING for 7200.12, you would have seen these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=145646 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=134961 And also had taken the time to read just five posts above yours, in this same page .... jaclaz

With all due respect, doing this: after having been suggested to: Sounds a lot like: after: Or: Let's start again from the basics, OK? Do you know what a disk editor or viewer is? Have you got one? If not get one from here: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/BootToolsRefs.htm You want a disk editor, NOT a partition manager. HXD is a disk editor (and runs on 9x also): http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/ PTS is a disk editor and works in DOS: http://thestarman.pcministry.com/tool/de/PTS-DE.htm Do you know what a bootsector is? Do you know where you can find it on your disk? jaclaz

I did re-read it, but still it seems to me like some vague reference to re-installing a directory is present: jaclaz