jaclaz

There are FOUR wires connected to the interface. Put aside the disk for the moment. Connect POWER to the interface, which means that you have to connect the wires 3.3/5V and Ground to a +3.3V/0 power supply (or battery). Connect the two other cables together (Tx and Rx). You are doing a loopback test, which is meant to verify that the interface is working, read here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807&st=384 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807&st=1194 jaclaz

And additionally, are you using Server2003 SP1 files or any of the other Ramdisk methods or are you trying to boot the .iso "directly"? Please take your time reading these two seemingly unrelated threads (AND links in them): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8944 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4952 if the answer to the above question is "Why, what is a RAMDISK?" jaclaz

In my personal opinion you should UNinstall ALL Norton Antivirus versions, old and new, from ANY system around. There are a few thread about software that still work on 98, here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=105936 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=105936&st=390 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=137928 there may be others. jaclaz

Well, you should complain to MS if your legit VLK key has been blacklisted. What do you mean you bought a new retail key? Isn't this what you are asking? OLD: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/328874/en-us NEW: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/selfhelp/XPPkuinst.aspx?displaylang=en jaclaz

Sure it is. The makers of the Board software expressly made their parser for posted URL's in such a way as to break them at commas, in order to prevent users from reading pages like: hxxp://news.cnet.com/Security-firms-on-police-spyware,-in-their-own-words/2100-7348_3-6196990.html (or maybe it was FBI or NSA forcing CNET to use these malformed URLs? ) Let's see if they got to TinyUrl too: http://tinyurl.com/cnc3d3 Good , they missed it. jaclaz

I guess you are missing the point I was trying to make. Hiding a partition by means of changing it's partition ID in the MBR (or EPBR's) is ONLY a convention to prevent "good behaving" apps and OS's to access that partition. As long as the partition data is there, a program under ANY OS may be able to read that info and consequently "operate" on the hidden partition. In other words a hidden partition is only hidden to you and to the running OS and to programs that respect this "convention". I showed you an example for NT, but you can do EXACTLY the same under DOS/9x or Linux or whatever, in other words, if the data is there, it can be read (and used for whatever good or malicious scope). If you want to make a partition really "hidden" you need to remove the data identifying it, not simply changing it's ID. Think of it about the difference between having a reserved document in plain view on your desktop with a nice yellow post-it on it "Please don't read or take this" vs. keeping it in your safebox. jaclaz

What do you mean "before MS took it over"? Some research was done at the time of this project (now abandoned): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5308&hl= jaclaz

jaclaz

Maybe I see. The first screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 202.09 Gb in size. The second screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 149.05 Gb in size. I presume you are saying that your disk is actually 149.05 Gb, right? Under which OS is the drive detected as being 202.09? Just Win2K or also other ones? Under which OS is the drive detected as being 145.05? Just Win7 or also other ones? Can you run beeblebrox: http://web.archive.org/web/20080423005903/http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/ And post screenshots of: the MBR data the data in each EPBR's (just to make sure that the "base" data is correct, in which case the problem is somewhere in the Registry of the OS('s) that show the "false" disk size) jaclaz

Well, no, it depends on the actual License, there can be allright a legit XP on a hard drive, what you are saying only applies to OEM versions, and only to some of them. jaclaz

What do you mean? Copy the .iso you download to the SAME place (and filename) you use in menu.lst entry. The example assumes that you copy the .iso to a folder called "images" in root of the USB stick and rename it to "ubcd5.iso". If you have it in root of the stick, named "Mickey_Mouse.iso" your entry should be: title Ultimate Boot CD map /Mickey_Mouse.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) If you have it in a folder called "goofy", your entry should be: title Ultimate Boot CD map /goofy/Mickey_Mouse.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) You should actually: jaclaz

Do I smell some good ol' conspiracy theory? There may be "good" and "bad" companies: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/18/1434229 http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/17/199223&tid=158 http://news.cnet.com/Will-security-firms-detect-police-spyware/2100-7348_3-6197020.html http://news.cnet.com/Security-firms-on-police-spyware,-in-their-own-words/2100-7348_3-6196990.html jaclaz

A DR (Data Recovery) professional won't fix it. He/she will Recover the Data. The disk in itself has NO value. The point is if data in it is valuable. If it is, you'd better go to a DR professional. If it is, but not enough to justify the expense, you can try a DIY job, but the chances you will succeed at first attempt (and you usually have just one or a few attempts available) are very, very scarce. WIth that kind of drive, provided that you know how to do it, PCB swap is possible, but you will need anyway to find the "right" PCB (rest assured, NOT easy at all) and to have the "right" software, and learn how to use it. This Commercial site contains anyway some info that you might be interested in: http://www.harddrive-repair.com/index.html Another "introductory" article: http://www.hdd.ji2.com/blog/2008/08/performing-a-printed-circuit-board-pcb-swap/ This may be of interest to you: http://forum.hddguru.com/what-the-necessary-critieria-for-maxtor-pcb-replacement-t7695.html jaclaz

I'd like to undermine , at least partially , your certainties about "safety" of hidden partitions. Please read this: http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/determining-filesystem-type.html and this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10169 In NT based systems a hidden partition is not much different from having a partition with no letter attached. jaclaz

NAAAHHH: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=1106 UUUHHH... XOSL: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xosl/ UUUUHHHH... XOSL 2: http://sourceforge.net/projects/xosl2/ Help: http://www.allensmith.net/OS/XOSL/index.htm Wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http:///home.wanadoo.nl/geurt/ http://web.archive.org/web/20020203085427/home.wanadoo.nl/geurt/faqhow/faq.html jaclaz

It's NOT clear at all, at least for me. What the scrrenshot shows is a Disk Management view of a hard disk (Disk 0) that has been partitioned as follows: First Active Primary partition 20 Gb FAT32 Label "Sys98" assigned Letter C: Extended Partition containing: Logical Volume 32 Gb NTFS Label "Sys2K" assigned Letter F: Logical Volume 44 Gb NTFS Label "SysXP" assigned Letter G: Logical Volume 53,05 Gb NTFS Label "SysW7" assigned Letter H: [*]Unallocated space 53,05 Gb There is nothing "strange" or "wrong" in it that I can see. Which is the problem? If you want to create a primary partition in the unallocated space, just right click on it and choose to do so. If you want to create a Logical Volume in it you will need first to extend the Extended Partition to enclose the unallocated space. This is not possible from XP (without using third party tools) but should be possible under Vista or 7. The other disk (Disk 1) is partitioned as follows: First Primary partition 6 Gb FAT32 Label "SysSwap" assigned Letter M: Primary partition (Active)10 Gb NTFS Label "MintSys" assigned Letter N: Extended Partition containing: Logical Volume 2 Gb NTFS Label "MintSwap" assigned Letter F: Logical Volume 34 Gb NTFS Label "MintData" assigned Letter P: [*]Primary partition 97.05 Gb NTFS Label "AllStors" assigned Letter Q: Hint : Dark Blue is Primary Light Blue is Logical Volume Green surrounding is Extended Partition Black is Unallocated jaclaz

XOSL screenshots: http://www.techtree.com/India/Reviews/Five_of_the_Best_Freeware_Disk_Utilities/551-48488-577.html Please be careful NOT to mix splashimage with gfxmenu, here are two examples, first one is splashimage, and second one is gfxmenu: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129399&st=5 which is the kind of gfxmenu you probably had in mind, but these are also gfxmenu: http://www2.apebox.org/wordpress/linux/228/ http://grub.gibibit.com/Themes there is no problem whatsoever AFAIK in adding to grub4dos the enhanced graphical capabilities, but noone (I talk about those actually interested in boot managers) is usually interested in the graphical design, and the way a gfxmenu is created is daunting even for a long time expert of Linux thingies, let alone those nice guys that know how to use Photoshop or The Gimp and actually have good taste and graphical capacities (but usually very small experience with the OS underlying) Anyway, we already have Aerostudio for those that really like the eye-candy: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=72 http://aerostudio.boot-land.net/ Yep, life is tough , BUT : jaclaz

It's something that it is difficult to explain, the good guys at Avanquest/V-COM thought to be(and maybe they are/were) the one and only Gods of multibooting and created those sets of wizards (the ones that you carefully avoid ) that could hose a system in no time. I personally like to understand what is happening under the hood, and with System Commander it isn't/wasn't so easy. At the time I tested it, it quickly hosed (no problem I know my way around to recover partitions ) a couple of test systems. another TWO: XOSL and grub4dos another TWO: XOSL and grub4dos another TWO: XOSL and grub4dos You can make a "theme" for Xosl (though the default one is nice enough) or use a gfxmenu with grub4dos, though there are few things I care less about a boot manager than the graphical aspect of it. The advantages I see currently with grub4dos is that the same loader (and same syntax) can be used on any media, floppy, HD, CD/DVD it can be started from the MBR, from a bootsector and even after having loaded DOS or Linux (with kexec), it can boot disk images (both floppy-like and HD-like), there is even firadisk that can hook a NT image loaded form it, it has command line support, so that you can manually check and correct a number of thigs connected to booting... jaclaz

Yes, to clarify hopefully: When windows 7 is installed to an UNPARTITIONED disk, it's install creates a hidden 100Mb (was 200 Mb) partition "automagically". This DOES NOT happen if you install it on an already set up partition. So it CANNOT be the reason. jaclaz

Hmmm. What happens with =SUM((D1-G2))? What happens with =D1-G2 ? jaclaz

Here you may be wrong. LoneCrusader uses both System Commander (which I personally think was one of the "most intrusive and unfriendly" boot manager ever produced) and BootIT NG (which I personally find one of the best ones). jaclaz has probably tested in his lifetime ALL (or nearly ALL) bootmanagers available, including Commercial ones, and still continues testing each and everyone of them as soon as he gets to know about any "new kid on the block". I have used on production systems ONLY those that I found "safe", "reliable" and "recoverable", with an eye for easy setups, flexibility and unobtrusiveness. For years the tools of choice for me were XOSL and OS-MBR (now MBLDR), now they are grub4dos (alone or with MBLDR). If I am allowed some bladerunnerish publicity : jaclaz

Just for the record and FYI: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=142710 I presume (but haven't tested it) that it should work on Vista/7 as well. The good thing is that you don't need the WAIK, but only the Win7 source. jaclaz

Just for the record: UNIATA Windows 9x version: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2384 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=114217 Whether it will work or not, is another thing. jaclaz

jaclaz

Winimage is NOT an imaging/cloning program, it is an image manipulating program, and besides, it is more "partition oriented" than "hard disk oriented". ANY "real" cloning solution will work. LOTS of them . As said any "real" cloning/imaging (dd-like) program will do. Under Windows XP, if you are sure the source disk is "kosher" (with no errors) you can use dsfo (part of the dsfok toolkit): http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ allright. If you have an error with it, I can recommend this one: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7783 http://www.datarescue.com/photorescue/v3/drdd.htm A possible caveat: since OS/2 is a bit "old" it is possible that the original disk is also very old and it may, expecially if it is a small one use a disk geometry different from the "new" disk. How big is the "original" disk? (besides size, check it's geometry) How big is the "new" disk? (besides size, check it's geometry) jaclaz