jaclaz

Points added/stressed on "read-me-first". jaclaz

I'll add a more explicit warning. Well, that is the problem if I would write that CA-42 cable doesn't work it would be a lie , they do work, most probably ALL of them, original and "fake", do work, IF: the cable is NOT damaged when opening the connector the CORRECT connections are found the cable is NOT damaged in attempts to find the righ connctions the PROPER driver is found the PROPER driver is PROPERLY installed We have reports of people trying as many as 4 or 5 "CA-42" cables from different sources before finding one that worked for them. As I see it, if you ALREADY have a CA-42 cable lying around in the "things that may be of use some day" drawer, you have nothing to lose in trying it , but if you have to buy one you'd better invest some more money in a "proper" TTL converter, known to be always working. I will try to add the above to hopefully better clear the situation. You are welcome. jaclaz

But is Isobuster a .iso EDITOR (which was the OP request)? Last time I checked it it was a CD recovery tool... Anyway, I would hope that in the 5 years since May 2005 OP has found a solution to his problems....:whistling: jaclaz

Well, you may have "skimmed" through the given thread, but probably NOT actually "read" it. Try again, expecially points: #5 (where it is said that firmware update can ONLY be applied on an unbricked drive) #10 (where it is said to "Please DO NOT use a CA-42 cable BECAUSE there are so many versions that it is unlikely that you get the right one at first attempt"): #10 (where it is said to "Please use ONLY a 3.3v TTL level interface") : #11 (where it is said to "Please search the main thread for links to converters that were reported to be working") : No, that converter you were talking about may work, but you are taking chances that the controller on board is "5v tolerant" something for which we do not have definitive evidence, in a nutshell: 3.3v will work 5v/3.3v may work 5v WON'T work Why taking chances with your data? We can put a link to a cable on e-bay , most probably you were looking at this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-TTL-Serial-Cable-/290445149419?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item439fe144eb For a couple of quids more, you can get this one: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-3V3-Logic-converter-3V3-regulated-output-/310151928700?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item48367edb7c which should be the "real thing". I tried my best to word that post as accurately as possible, but obviously being English not my mother tongue I may have created something that is not easy to understand, since you are from the UK, if you have any suggestion to make the above concepts more clear, you are welcome. jaclaz

Well, no. We can make a guess, point is whether it will be accurate... jaclaz

NTFS is a rather "bulky" filesystem for very little sized volumes. Strip from the file first 0x2000 or 8192 bytes and save as bottsdi.raw. Open this file with 7-zip and you will see the NTFS filesystem structures that occupy a lot of space. The problem was talked about many years ago when Mark Russinovich made possible to have NTFS formatted floppies: http://freewareapp.com/ntfsflp_download/ http://web.archive.org/web/20000511191617/www.sysinternals.com/ntfsflp.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20000511191617/http://www.sysinternals.com/ntfsflp.zip It seems like the Log file can be reduced from the current 524,288 bytes to 262,144, that at the time was found to be the bare minimum. Compare the NTFSIMG in the download with the bootsdi.raw file in 7-zip . jaclaz

What you report does not make (much) sense. Your drive is EITHER "bricked" OR NOT. (binary, 0/1, Yes/No, On/Off) I.e. it is EITHER seen and normally accessible AND THEN you can update it's firmware OR it is not (and then you simply cannot do ANYTHING to it). Please do read the read-me-first: It should (hopefully) clear your doubts about the symptoms you should have, the reason why you have them and the way to fix them (hopefully). Seagate has been VERY UNLIKE "linear" in it's approach to recovering data (for free or for a charge), but I doubt that ANYWAY it will cover "OEM" hard disks. Search the board for posts containing keyword "i365" (that's the name of the Seagate Recovery Company). It is against the Rules of the board to offer such services (see Rule #13): http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/18408-forum-rules-updated-must-read/ But the procedure is relatively easy, the cost of the interface is trivial and I am pretty sure you can find among your friends someone with an even minimal electric/electronic experience capable of following the needed steps, provided that the symptoms are the "right" ones and thus the solution is actually the "right" one as well. If you have no friends with such experience, most probably your local computer shop or maybe mobile phone repair shop can do the fix and already has the needed hardware. jaclaz

Qemu is free and small (even with Qemu Manager): http://www.davereyn.co.uk/download.htm it will be slightly slower than other Virtual Machines, but for a "once in a lifetime" use it will be more than enough AND it uses "standard" virtual hardware and installing XP on it needs NOT "fancy" drivers. jaclaz

LWD method: http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-9.html Gallery: http://www.littlewhitedog.com/content-17.html My personal bootscreen : /noguiboot jaclaz

Murphy's Law is there EXACTLY to prove itself right in these occasions. If you connect the HD on both XP and Vista/7 AND you have a "particular" setup (but nothing too fancy) AND you used Disk Manager on it from XP, it is also possible that you fell in this problem: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9897&hl= It is not clear from your report if the problem is "partition related" or "filesystem related", if the latter it is possible that you have some strange "backup or replicating" service running (and badly configured) or that you somehow use a cache program and delayed writes failed (like switching off or disconnecting the thingy before changes were committed). Anyway, unlike the 7200.11 problems, your problems seem to derive NOT from hardware problems of the hard disk, whilst they may depend from a hardware problem of the USB controller inside the external case. jaclaz

Choosing a program (once decided if going "Freeware" or "Commercial") and actual probabilities of getting back the needed data depends by a couple of factors: HOW the drive was formatted "before" (which filesystem) AND IF the filesystem was defragmented recently HOW the drive has been formatted "after" General ideas are exposed here: Just as an example, if a drive was NTFS and has been re-formatted as FAT32, chances are that you can recover 100%. The actual Operating System used to format may (please read as "will") make the difference. If the drive was FORMATted as "Full" under Vista/7, probabilities are 0% (zero percent) as under these OS the Format command actually WIPEs the filesystem: jaclaz

For the record, your guess is wrong, the problem was that you initially failed to give out the needed details. And yes, removing the contents of your original post only makes the provided solutions more difficult to be of use to any other member. The original post was about a way to identify files with names in a format like: and delete latest (or the previous one). jaclaz

Only too happy to have contributed to another happy bunny : http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128727&st=10 jaclaz

Yes, it is correct, provided that your USB floppy has Vid=0409 and Pid=0040, BTW it is one of the id's tested and reported as working (see post by MrRoberts): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82711&st=7 BUT your txtsetup.oem is a "multiple hardware choice" one, so that will ONLY work if your adapter is "PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_282A&CC_0104", and NOT if it is ANY of the other ones. In other words, unless you know for sure which PCI\VEN the board is, you should try adding the: line to ALL of HardwareIds.Scsi items: jaclaz

IF I actually understood what you are looking for , you want something that performs a Fourier transform analisys and comparison on the .wav's. See if these fit: http://www.primianotucci.com/default.php?view=77 http://sourceforge.net/projects/fourierrocks/ http://php.indiana.edu/~jhallida/spanform/spanform.htm jaclaz

There are several approaches to your problem, basically: have your USB floppy being recognized during setup: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=82711 have a virtual floppy during setup: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=137461&st=29 integrate your drivers to the XP source (on a new CD/DVD): http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/35/ http://unattended.msfn.org/unattended.xp/view/web/36/ (this is just one of the methods, if you are NOT in a Commerial environment you can use the nlite program) integrate your drivers to the XP source (on a USB device like a memory stick or external hard disk and install from it): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 (check FAQ's there is a link to BTS Driver Packs, possibly they already contain the right driver) Please take into account that - generally speaking - Dell's do have some quirks, BOTH in the XP CD's they ship with (but this is not your case) AND with USB support, so your mileage may vary. jaclaz

Usually on a notebook, there is somewhere printed in LARGE LETTERS the manufacturer's name and usually in small ones the actual model. You read this info, enter it in google and press the Search button. It is likely you will have access to datasheets where you can find out what kind of hard disk that particular notebook uses and possibly also to drivers for it. Usually this happens going to the manufacturer's site and accessing an area called "Support", sometimes with a sub-area called "Downloads". You can also (should you feel lucky ), try the "I'm feeling lucky" button... Example: http://tinyurl.com/3a7sxcw jaclaz

Open a command prompt. In it type: DIR /S E:>C:\mydirlist.txt (presuming that your "1 Tb" drive is E:\, this will produce a Directory listing on the volume in file C:\mydirlist.txt - change drive letters accrding to your setup) Compress mydirlist.txt into a .zip file and attach it to your next post. This way we have an exact view of the files you are using. Also, post some info on what you mean by "store b". jaclaz

Please read point #5 of the read-me-first (which you should have ALREADY read ): There are a few common misconceptions about hard disk drives. The first one is "they are reliable" (which is normally true) which is wrongly perceived as "they will never break" (which is UTTERLY false). An accurate statement is for this special case: ANY hard disk, from ANY manufacturer, of ANY series WILL break, sooner or later. The "general" point is if you are going to take your chances of losing your data WHEN it will break. The specific points are: we DO NOT actually know if the wrong log entry is the ONLY cause of the problem (anything posted officially by Seagate is either incomplete, misleading or simply false) we DO NOT actually know HOW to diagnose the problem (we think this problem can cause two different kind of errors, the LBA0 or the BSY one, but obviously it is b*ll**it, a single problem normally causes a single error - always the same - or a given series of errors - always the same, if you cross-reference this with the different boards, different firmwares and what not the result is "A suffusion of yellow") we DO NOT actually know if the fix is appropriate (what we know is that in the very large majority of hard disks showing the LBA0 or a BSY error, by performing a series of actions we are able to "unbrick" them, that's all, just like if your car stops and you change spark plugs and the battery and the carburetor and the coil and the gasoline in the tank and all the filters, and then you say "I fixed it" - without having the faintest idea WHAT was the cause and WHAT solved the problem) However, even assuming that the "cause" has been well diagnosed AND that the "fix" was the right one, the result is NOT a "failproof" drive, at the best is a drive AS reliable AS another of the same manufacturer/series, which, as said, tells you NOTHING about it's actual reliability. So, in the BEST hypothesis, you SHOULD NOT trust the fixed drive ANY better than you would another one, i.e. DO NOT TRUST it AT ALL. (of course if you care for your data) There is ONLY one way to keep data safe, and it is called REDUNDANCY, the three Golden Rules of Backup: Backup Backup again After considering the philosophy of the above two points, BACKUP AGAIN! jaclaz

Dear friend, I would presume that in almost two years the Original Poster has found a solution and/or is now using another OS. jaclaz

OK. (which means NOT OK ). Now try booting a DOS on that machine (any will do, like FreeDOS or a DOS 7.1 or 8.0), I have seen machines re-booting when the graphic card (windows driver) was initialized or soon after. jaclaz

Spike1, first thing: DON'T PANIC (assume the above to be written in large, friendly letters) The "caddy" you are talking about is a USB external enclosure, right? Usually you don't want to "format" a hard disk that you buy second hand, you want first to wipe it, to (re-) partition it, BEFORE attempting formatting it: it is very possible that the hard disk was partitioned/formatted with an incompatible kind of IPL/MBR or filesystem. You should also test it. There are different tools to perform the above, from XP easiest will probably be: Wipe: Roadkil's Disk Wipe: http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P14/Disk%20Wipe Partition: XP Disk Manager Format: XP Disk Manager Test: Hard disk Manufacturer's Utility http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolsofthetrade/tp/tophddiag.htm HDDscan: http://hddguru.com/ http://hddguru.com/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/ jaclaz

Sure , I am NOT doubting in the least *your* need for 6.22 , I am doubting the actual *need* by HenriK of BOTH 6.22 AND a high amount of space . Just for the record AFAIK there are several ways to double boot 6.22 and 7.x, most notably MS own use of the renaming of boot files: http://www.mdgx.com/osr2.htm#2BOOT jaclaz

Please note that MS-DOS 6.22 has a number of limitations that DOS 7.x (i.e. the DOS that comes with Win9x systems) has not. If you use 7.x you can access natively FAT32 partitions, and have LBA available. There are very few reasons to use 6.22 instead of 7.x, but they can be set in a dual boot environment allright, and even if you actually *need* 6.22 for a few programs , you can use the 7.x for all the rest and have separate partitions. You can write the word "OLD" allright, together with white hairs we also get some tolerance to it. (but please DO NOT use the term "Vintage computing" ) I am unaware of any DOS 6.22 compatible ONLY program that will need such a big amount of space for data, remember the common size of hard disks in the last period of times when DOS 6.22/Win 3.1x were installed on PC's "in factory" (i.e. just before Windows 95) was 300Mb. I remember buying as "very last" DOS machines a few Compaq's that were advertised as having a 300 Mb HD but actualy had a 500 Mb one. A *very large* "consumer" hard disk at the time was the Quantum Fireball 1 GB. On "high end" machines (running NT 3.51 and later 4.0) I remember having large storeage in th eform of a set of a RAID with 3 2.1 GB hard disks! jaclaz

Only too happy of having contributed to another happy bunny: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128727&st=10 jaclaz