jaclaz

No, I am saying that I did not understand your question, and that the file you posted contains no UNICODE characters, nor Cyrillic ones. Can you post an example (a short Cyrillic name/word)? Read this in the meantime: http://www.chem.msu.su/soft/convert/readme.txt Get the file: http://www.chem.msu.su/soft/convert/ and play with it a bit. are you using (CP866) or (CP1251)? Open a command prompt, type in it EDIT [ENTER] and use the "DOS" editor to create/modify the batch. jaclaz

I don't understand the question. It should actually have a .cmd extension, and it is so short one can post it in a codebox without problems: @echo off cls TITLE: echo 1) Mozilla Firefox echo 2) Internet Explorer 8 echo 3) Media Player Classic echo 4) EXIT :a set /p ans=Enter a number: if '%ans%'== '1' GOTO one if '%ans%'== '2' GOTO two if '%ans%'== '3' GOTO three if '%ans%'== '4' GOTO four GOTO a :one cd "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox" start firefox.exe GOTO a :two cd "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer" start iexplore.exe GOTO a :three cd "C:\Program Files\K-Lite Codec Pack\Media Player Classic" start mplayerc.exe GOTO a :four exit Can you try beetter explaining the problem (apart the fact that "TITLE:" is hardly a batch command)? jaclaz

Just for the record, unless a multi-sectors third party bootmanager is used, in a "normal" MBR the sectors that make it up are just ONE (first sector of physicaldrive). Since the code has been hopefully fixed by bootrec and the partition is found with /ScanOS, the only missing thing could be: wrong partition type (but it shouldn't actually be a problem) non--active partition (which could be the problem) Of course if the advice: Actually translates to: And this: Actually translates to: It will be hard to know what has happened/is happening. jaclaz

And speaking of XML output , and JFYI: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...23408&st=21 be AWARE of the (hopefully false) positive jaclaz

The 7200.11 uses 38400 8 N 1. Is that board using 3.3V or 5 V TTL levels? You want 2.8 or 3.3V ones. Read this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...807&st=2338 jaclaz

To sum up, we now know that two apps "automagically" created a coaster on your particular setup and a third one "automagically" created a working DVD. We don't know whether it was: a "glitch in the matrix" (which would likely not happen again/be reproducible) an incompatibility of some kind with the media an incompatibility of some kind with the hardware an incompatibility of some kind with your source file structure or whatever a PBCAK So, we have not learned much, apart from something we already knew , that IMGBURN is a very dependable app. In other words, the problem is solved , but we don't know WHY it happened, nor HOW it can be fixed should it happen again. Can we count you in the basket of happy bunnies, now? http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...28727&st=10 jaclaz

@Ponch Yep, but it is a bit unlikely to happen in real life. Not that a lot of people don't normally tie their hard disks to a rope and start spinning them like mad, only that very few will stand the three ton pull. A common thng that may happen in real life is: the drive is on a table or bench (around 3 Feet high) you, your mate or your pet make it fall to the ground If the data calculated is correct your drive is dead. So, instead of "if the drive experiences shock in excess of 300 Gs" they could well write "if the drive falls from your table", which would be, I presume, more easy to understand. An ever better one may be "if dropped on a hard surface from more that 30 cm". And the moral or lesson in this story is: the Japanese have a clear advantage over us westerners, as they normally use: lower tables tatami carpets under them jaclaz

I did a couple of tests, and that geometry seems allright after all, it means that you partitioned that thingy under an unpatched Vista with Alignment ON, aligned on 1 Mb. So the partition table geometry is "right". the only problem is the partition ID, (which is not a problem it's just a matter of 06 07). You seeem like a lucky guy, as all that is missing appears to be the first sector of the NTFS bootsector. I need another bit of that thingy: dsfo e:\dsfok\hddfull.img -2560000 0 e:\dsfok\last5000.bin Translation: there is a copy of the bootsector as last sector of the partition on NTFS filesystem. TESTDISK should be able to find it, however. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_St...sector_recovery Before fiddling with it, however, do post the last sectors, I will assemble a file for you to merge with the image. jaclaz

Cannot say with Vista RE. jaclaz

Boot from a DOS floppy with any suitable disk utility and check that there is a partition active. jaclaz

The data is very, very strange. 06 00 0 32 33 1023 254 63 2048 234436608 The partition type is FAT16. The CHS offset is that of a small device with 32 sectors. (32+1)*63=2079 and NOT 2048. The file you sent is all 00's apart the MBR. Try posting a bigger chunk of the image: dsfo e:\dsfok\hddfull.img 0 2560000 e:\dsfok\first5000.bin jaclaz

That message seems like coming from the BIOS of the machine that cannot find the drive as BOOTABLE. Are you sure that the HD is in the Boot priority list in BIOS? This may be also due to having NO active partitions in the MBR Partition Table. Have you some kind of alternate boot media? Like: Floppy CD (and a CD burner) USB stick (you will lose the data on it, so back it up) jaclaz

No prob. Definitely they are not the only ones. We have a whole catalog of alternate tricks. But, JFYI, unless I am mistaken, under the terms of the contract I signed, I am in no way obliged to: answer all questions answer questions recommend (or NOT recommend) software attempt persuading anyone (or fail to) over anything prove (or fail to prove) ANYTHING All I do is trying to see if I can help, but I will do it with my methods and at my own pace, take it or leave it, no offence intended, and no offence taken. I won't get involved in a flame war about MSCDEX.EXE vs. SHSUCDX.EXE or mkisofs vs magiciso or whatever, they all seem to me like King Kong vs. Godzilla (and JFYI, the dinosaur can get rid of that grown up chimpanzee with one hand tied behind his back, anytime ) You want MSCDEX.EXE, have it, it's all yours. Now, back to the problem. Let me see if we can sum up the original problem: you made a DVD that does not boot you made it with a custom floppy image you made it with MagicISO The problem can be: in your DVD hardware in your custom floppy image in MagicISO in a PBCAK My first idea was that it was MagicISO or the PBCAK . I simply suggested a way to test if that was the problem, but you have a number of limits in your current environment: no VM no certainty about the DVD hardware From what you report and from results of your tests with Nero, I am starting to really think it is #1 above, and if this is the case there is no need to change anything. Try doing yet another attempt with IMGBURN: http://www.imgburn.com/ using these instructions: http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=1779 and your usual floppy image as boot image. If it's another coaster, I would say that it is a hardware problem, so you can forget everything about mkisofs and it's commands and about MSCDEX vs. SHSUCDX, and even this whole thread, just go to your trusted PC dealer, fork from a few bucks and get a new burner. jaclaz

I wonder which is the difficult part in this: I'll try to translate it: this is alpha/beta software, ONLY people with an adequate DOS background, and specifical DOS driver knowledge should attempt using it the USBINTRO is a 186 page document, you should read them all you cannot expect that anyone will explain the whole 186 pages AND teach you about DOS driver loading on a technical board in order to be able to read and understand the mentioned document you need to have a base knowledge; from the fact you posted: I presume that you miss this base knowledge, that you can only build by reading, googling, and reading again, and experimenting, in order to have the needed DOS background Please don't take the above as "I don't want to help/assist you", but you should be conscious of what you are asking, more or less a complete DOS course, which I presume would take a few days/weeks. jaclaz

Well, the bootrec.exe /fixmbr should ONLY fix the MBR CODE, you must now check the MBR DATA. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/en-us Post the EXACT message you see when trying booting. (EXACT, means EXACT, including CaSe) jaclaz

NO, don't worry, it applies only on USB devices. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125116 NO. If that thingy won't work on 2K there approximately 0.000000000001% probabilities it will work on XP. jaclaz

Not really, we're having some fun, that's all. The problem is that you want to "lead" the discussion: Which is allright, but doing so it will take longer than you might expect, mainly because you have your own opinions (which is good ) but some of them are based on assumptions or presumptions: I'll astonish you telling you that DOS filenames on CD are NOT the same as the DOS filenames you know about (slightly). If you want to take the RED pill, you should know that rabbit holes may be deeper than what you might think : http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~varun/cs315p/iso9660.pdf Now you have 3 (three) willing helping members: dencorso cdob jaclaz that are telling you, more or less: to which you reply, again more or less: I wonder what MSCDEX.EXE has done to you to get such an affection in return.... jaclaz

If I were you, before anything else, I would try this boot floppy: http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/usbdrv.html and see how it "behaves". jaclaz

Just in case: http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/bootsectexe-...or-not-the-mbr/ You need to run ONLY: bootrec.exe /fixmbr at first attempt. jaclaz

That's allright, I wonder why your friend bought a PC with a Raid 0 if he wanted redundancy. Now, first thing is to get out of the reboot loop. Can you trying pressing F8 when booting: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/helpcentre/troubl...ID=body.1_div.3 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315222/en-us And start in Safe mode? jaclaz

So, is your problem related to accessing USB Mass Storage devices only from DOS? Or is it the problem booting from a USB stick on older PC that do not support USB booting? Please note how the above two questions are only apparently similar. jaclaz

Let's make a deal. If you give me a reason why you used a 2048 blocks offset when mounting with IMDISK (I won't ask you how it came to you to use IMDISK with an image that you cannot fix with TESTDISK), AND you run: dsfo e:\dsfok\hddfull.img 0 1049088 e:\dsfok\first2049.bin AND you compress the file in a zip file and post it or give a link from where I can download it, I will help you further. Translation: We were originally trying to have partition based recovery, as opposed to file based recovery, which is what you actually performed, and now you want to go back to partition based one. jaclaz

Yep. Let's assume we have an EMPTY (all 00's) hard disk, let's say a 7200.11 ST500320AS 500 Gb: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?name...mp;locale=en-US With a: The typical is because some people ask this kind of questions also: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Do_bits_on_a_har...o_a_80_gb_space and the 00's is because other people write these kind of things : http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=21827&st=7 Also, we know that 1 g=9.80665*m/s^2 and the nice calculation you provide gives a result in Newtons, and we know that 1 N= 1 Kg*m/s^2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_(unit) Now, let's fake that we also have an EMPTY (all 00's) 7200.11 ST3320613AS 320 Gb http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?vgne...tSpecifications that weights: And that we use EXACTLY 52g of duct tape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duct_tape to keep the two together. Now we have a mass of exactly 1000 grams=1 kg that should simplify the calculations. Let's also say that we drop the bundle from exactly 1 m (slighlty more than the original three feet) We have that to obtain: 100g=980.665 N d must be equal to 0.01 m <- this is 10 mm 300g=2941,995 N d must be equal to 0.00333 m <- this is 3 mm 500g=4903,325 N d must be equal to 0.002 m <- this is 2 mm 2000g=19613,3 N d must be equal to 0.000499 m <- this is 0.5 mm Can you give me typical d values for: concrete/ceramics wood carpet And confirm that the above calculation is correct? jaclaz

Some advantages : nice Icons, which is a good thing, as you will have more distractions and notice not the times it take to index your drives a login screen where you can put a small image for each users WOW! file searching with a nice animated dog using automatically wildcards, thus looking NOT for what you are looking for, but what the dog thinks more fit, which is a good thing, as you don't really know what you are looking for you won't be able to format most floppies, which is a good thing since floppies are pointless anyway you will need 1.5 Gb of space on HD minimum instead of 600 Mb, which is a good thing as you would have otherwise used that space for p0rn or warez slower access on FAT32 USB Mass Storage devices, which is a good thing so you will have more time to look at the pretty icons Seriously, there are no "advantages" or "disadvantages" in an absolute way, and it is very easy to go on a flame war on this kind of topic, the two OS are very similar, being XP nothing more than a "modernized" 2K, with some better features and some worse ones, but it mostly depends on the eye of the beholder. My personal advice is: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097216/quotes jaclaz

OK. Some questions first: WHY you want to install DOS USB drivers? (meaning which USB devices you need to have access to/from pure DOS)? You know that these drivers are NOT needed in Windows GUI operations and that they may actually interfere witrh Windows 98 "protected mode"? You do know that loading DOS drivers normally results in further lowering the available memory and thus the size of programs that can be executed/run? jaclaz