jaclaz

Happy to have given you something new to chew on. The idea is that most part of the needs is already coded and it is Open Source, so it's not needed to start from scratch (if anyone is willing to do something about this) Would you be willing to try the newish MS way to manage Offline Registries ? : http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11212 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11312 maybe it could work on 9x (kernelEx or whatever) OT but not much : http://www.databack4u.com/snc/rtkf_eng.html http://www.ctuser.net/ http://www.ctuser.net/content/docs/reg2exe_en.htm jaclaz

Actually there is for PE 1.x. I don't think that on PE 2.x or 3.x it should be much different: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19663 I guess it is possible to import the DosDevices key in the offline Registry inside the .wim. jaclaz

Well, the "drive isn't read" means that "no filesystems can be read" (which corresponds to a RAW disk). But the thing that is RAW, can be read allright (the actual \\.\Physicaldriven) The BIG problem is when the actual disk is not seen at all by the OS. There is a lot of confusion by the often lightly exchanged terms disk and drive, and volume. A disk drive (the whole thing) contains a number of minimal size accessible units, the sectors. Normally a sector is 512 bytes in size. A number of these sectors (normally 63, more under unpatched Vista and 7) are "hidden" and never normally accessible. Then a group of later sectors are grouped in a partition or volume (the thing that you actually format with a filesystem). These structures, in a simplified way are "indexes" or "pointers" to actual sectors. In other words a disk (whole disk) is made of sectors like: When you Partition a disk (as an example with a single partition some data is written to the sectors: When you format this partition or volume (what you have a drive letter assigned to ) some data is written to the sectors, the first sector of the partition is now sector at relative offset 0: When you save a file on this volume: So, basically: a partition or volume can only be found if the MBR data pointing to it is correct. -> Effect: RAW disk a filesystem on the partition or volume can only be found if the PBR bootsector pointing to it is correct. -> Effect: RAW filesystem a file on the filesystem can only be found if the Filesystem data pointing to it is correct. -> Effect: Lost file Now the idea is to make an exact copy of the whole disk AS IS, at sector level. Then, attempt to rebuild these "indexes" on the copy. This way it is possible to attempt different methods without the risk of compromising the original, that in case of problems can be re-imaged to start again from scratch. A couple examples of a recovery procedure from RAW: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=141687 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=145574 A suitable app to create the image is this one: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7783 jaclaz

WOW, you are one freaking JACK-a**. YOU SURE HAVE LOTS TO SAY, AND NOTHING TO CONTRIBUTE. In Italy we have a saying: [italian] Cencio dice male di straccio [/italian] which translates roughly to : Rag speaks ill of cloth. jaclaz

Check how it is seen in BIOS, first. If it is shown with 0 capacity, then yes,it's a LBA0 symptom. jaclaz

You are mixing possibilities with certainties. The behaviour you described may be caused by the problematic MBR. Which does not mean it is the one and only possible cause of this behaviour. Running the setup from USB is similar but obviously not EXACTLY the same as running it from CD/DVD, so while it is possible that the problem is elsewhere, the fact that installing from CD/DVD works allright is a sign, but not enough to exclude this problem with setup and MBR's as a cause. It is well possible that the problem is your motherboard BIOS or even somewhere else, notwithstanding the fact that these USB methods have worked for several thousands if not tens of thousands of people, from time to time something is found that creates the need for a bug fix or a bettering. jaclaz

OS up to XP/2003 you could only format. Format with the /q switch just formatted the partition. (quick) Format without the /q switch formatted the partition AND checked sectors. (long) Starting from Vista and consequently Server 2008 and presumably 7: Format with the /q switch just formats the partition. (quick) Format without the /q switch formats the partition AND wipes each sector AND checks sectors. (long) Reference: XP etc: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302686/en-us Vista etc.: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941961/en-us Since you are still keeping the drive there is no sense in wiping out the data, so: Open a commmand prompt window, and type in it: Format <driveletter> /q [ENTER] change <driveletter> with the actual drive letter your old drive has, check carefully. More options: http://ss64.com/nt/format.html jaclaz

Early setup may hang at strange MBR partition table. No prob. MbrFix /drive <num> clean But the question whether OP has aan actual NT OS in which to run the above remains valid. jaclaz

What does Victoria show? http://www.benchmarkhq.ru/english.html?/be_hdd.html From the looks of what you posted it seems like you've managed to kill the disk allright. Most probably it is still recoverable, but you will need software and hardware that is outside the reach of a hobbyist. I am talking of products like PC-3000 or HD Doctor, thingies going in the range of a few thousands US$. jaclaz

No, it should be enough to restore the "normal" 2K/XP MBR CODE: http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm MbrFix /drive <num> fixmbr But can you run it? Otherwise you can wipe completely (still just the MBR) from within grub4dos, using the dd command and overwriting the MBR sector with any of the hidden ones (that should be 00's). jaclaz

Just for the record, Mark Russinovich's new approach to SID: http://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2009/11/03/3291024.aspx jaclaz

If you read the post just above yours, it means that: it CAN be done links to HOW to do it are given Please name the "Bart geeks" that said it can't be done, I doubt that ANY person rightfully defined as "Bart geek" can have missed the original thread on 911CD: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181&hl= jaclaz

hence? Well, there has been a misunderstanding. To make space you delete files and folders. To make space quickly you (re-)format the partition (with the /q option)- To make space in such a way that NO previous info can be retrieved, you wipe a drive, using one of the suggested program or, if only the partition needs to be wiped by formatting the partition under Vista/7 (it won't work under XP and previous) without specifying the /q option. jaclaz

You mean that "rundll32 wbemupgd, UpgradeRepository" changed nothing? http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6730&st=8 There must be something on that specific machine that simply is UNcommon, I wonder WHAT it can be. jaclaz

There is nothing "good" or "bad" in wiping a hard disk drive. Points to ponder are: do you have a backup strategy for your DATA? are you going to re-sell the old drive on e-bay or similar? IF #1 is OK, then you CAN wipe the disk allright. (otherwise you should start with a sound backup strategy and the old drive may be of use) IF #2 is what you want to do then you SHOULD wipe the disk. To wipe the disk you can use (strongly advised) any simple program doing a single pass of 00's. (anything else is b***sh**) http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125900 Recommended: http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml it is also part of the UBCD: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ (just download and burn, seveal more utilities included) jaclaz

Have you checked this? Russian: http://paullee.ru/regstry.html Google Translate: http://translate.google.it/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpaullee.ru%2Fregstry.html&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8 jaclaz

WHEN are you inserting the USB device? Normally a PE will autodetect devices already connected at boot time AND NOT devices connected after boot. jaclaz

I understand: this particular BIOS map a 16gb USB stick to a 1.44mb floppy drive. Windows setup use BIOS to access boot media. This fails at such mapping: biosinfo.inf not found. Almost all BIOS map a 16gb USB stick to a hard disk. Windows setup does work. cdob having a hiccup? drive 0x80(LBA): C/h/S=1024/255/63, Sector Count/Size=31342815/512 Partition num: 0, active, Filesystem type is ntfs, partition type 0x07 drive 0x00(CHS): C/H/S=80/2/18,Sector Count/Size=2880/512 geometry (fd0) returns a floppy, that's normal. geometry (hd0) returns a hard disk allright. jaclaz

Please define "cutomized" I have the doubt that "customized" is in this case a synonym of "unauthorized redistribution of modified copies" jaclaz

Where? Here : http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=100299 jaclaz

Hey, wait a minute, I mistook your for a grub4dos error 2 Maybe it's some kind of RAM related error (specific to that machine) . If this is the case, if you use the 0.2.3 "stable" (that uses NOT the .iso mapping) it should work. Check also (though it should NOT be related) with the modified NTDETECT.COM: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=112630 The grub4dos mapping is allright, so I don't think that re-partitioning/formatting with fbinst would do any good, but it's another semi-random attempt woth a shot. jaclaz

jaclaz

Another happy bunny in the basket! http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128727&st=10 jaclaz

I would hope than in the last 8 months OP solved the problem, one way or the other. jaclaz

Hmmm . Try with [TAB] autocompletion, i.e. map --mem (hd0,0)/WINSETUP/XPpSP3.ISO (0xff) map (hd0) (hd1) map (hd1) (hd0) map --hook root (0xff) and then: chainloader / [TAB] etc. until you complete the line, maybe there is a problem with the CaSe of the filenames? But it should not give error 2, but rather error 15... and it shouldn't print: Seem like a problem of the .iso, but it's strange... The only time I have seen error 2: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21756 it was a filesystem issue (on EXT2/3 FS, so completely unrelated) jaclaz