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

Sure, but the question is "how much" is 300 Gs? Good, exactly the kind of answer I was trying NOT to get. I see a drive falling (and landing) in the same manner a brick would, no belly flop and no water. I'll try again, given that: a drive won't do belly flops or whatever usually in houses and offices there is NO water underneath, but a floor for what it matters a brick will behave exactly the same How many g will the drive brick experience when falling from three feet on the floor (we can have three answers/ranges, say, concrete/ceramics - wood - carpet)? We are already supposed to know that the answer(s) is/are in the 100-2,000g range, but we have this limit of 300 that we must place somewhere. jaclaz

Then you are using the "wrong" tool/approach. Read here: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181 (tutorials in Dietmar's signature) AND here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...19963&st=23 AND here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9830 Take you time digesting the info. Then come back if you have questions/problems. jaclaz

YES. http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollar...no-answers.html If you also want to know the reason, it is that you fiddled with it in every which way you can (and one more) and possibly you have some corrupted data in the MBR, bootsector, or both. (Most probably the MBR, judging from the message). If you also want help in attempting recovering it, start a new thread here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=19 or here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=67 as it has nothing to do with the bricking which is hopefully solved. jaclaz

Wait a minute. You want to: install XP ON a USB Hard Disk Drive (meaning that you want later to boot and run XP FROM the USB hard disk drive) OR install XP FROM a USB Hard Disk Drive (meaning that you want later to boot and run FROM an internal hard disk drive) Please choose one of the above. jaclaz

Videoripper has just posted here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...807&st=2475 an actual photo of a hard disk label where it is printed in large, friendly letters: I got curious in what 300 Gs (which should actually read as g -you normally don't put the plural on symbols of units of measurement ) do represent in layman's terms. There are quite a number of posts in forums around where mostly inexperienced people threw in hearsay, absurd calculations, semi-random numbers and what not. A quick check on Wikipedia clears some aspects: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-force http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_hard_drive_protection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_(mechanics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_(mechanics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impulse whilst documents from the actual manufacturers, like these: http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/vecto...lprotection.pdf http://www.seagate.com/docs/pdf/whitepaper/MB585_gforce.pdf once stripped off the fluff, say next to nothng useful. Anyway I seem no to be able to find ANYTHING giving an adequate answer to this question: This document is finally clearing something: http://www.memsic.com/data/pdfs/Accel%20Primer.pdf though knowing that equals: can hardly be called "narrowing" the problem. Would anyone REALLY (which means NOT "from what I remember from physics at high school, if you divide space by mass and multiply by PI you get ....." kind of thing) understanding the matter provide some calculations/examples? jaclaz

@duffy98 It is much more complex than what you think. Please start a new thread where we can discuss this issue without hijacking the present thread. jaclaz

Good. jaclaz

Sorry I missed the part where you wrote: "I am using a modified Windows 98 install floppy boot disk image using JO.SYS as El-Torito floppy emulation using MSCDEX.EXE " Boy, do I hate these Romulan cloaking devices! jaclaz

CD-RECORD/CDRtools: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/cdrecord.html and/or a GUI for them: http://www.paehl.de/home.htm http://dpaehl.dd6338.kasserver.com/cdr/cddvdiso.php http://dpaehl.dd6338.kasserver.com/cdr/CD_DVD_COPY.php You don't need to actually mount a .iso and use Beyond Compare or similar utilities, just create an compare the MD5 hashes of them. http://www.fastsum.com/ http://www.etree.org/md5com.html http://www.winmd5.com/ Also, slightly off topic, but related: http://www.kvipu.com/CDCheck/ http://www.oemailrecovery.com/cd_recovery.html http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2172 This is "the real thing" (though you won't like it's price): http://www.infinadyne.com/cddvd_inspector.html "Poor man's" version: http://www.infinadyne.com/cddvd_diagnostic.html jaclaz

It seems like on some machines it is possible to disable ACPI.SYS: http://www.techtalkz.com/windows-xp/10281-...-cpu-usage.html Or maybe using a nonACPI HAL? A couple references to a similar issue with battery: http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-3...tting-Down.html http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum...cess-print.html jaclaz

Naah, I don't think that you will get a noticeable difference in everyday work putting on an ATA33 bus a 7200 RPM instead of a 5400 RPM one, BUT if the drive onboard cache is bigger, then you will notice it. http://www.wdc.com/en/library/eide/2579-001043.pdf http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9808...ataroundup.html http://www.storagereview.com/articles/9907...oundup1999.html http://www.storagereview.com/articles/200511/notebook_1.html Please note that 7200 vs 5400 is a bit pointless, a "good" 5400 can have so similar performance to a "bad" 7200 that you won't be able to tell the difference. jaclaz

Interesting problem. Though the actual "good" way to backup a CD is to make a .iso file of it. (please read as dd-like copy), remember that a .iso is a CD and a CD is a .iso. jaclaz

Just checked, VFD: http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vfd.html can create/mount AND format 2.88 images allright (but of course they'll have NT bootsector, so you need anyway an utility to change the bootsector). Let's see what's comes out of this: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=10410 jaclaz

Same here , it seems like there is a new (lower) timeout when you reply. jaclaz

To begin with, why did you used a "customized" version of the floppy? (without saying so, and I had to "extort" this info) Anyone is wondering WHY in the suggested and referenced batch: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...18045&st=25 I have written the following?: @dencorso Nice to meet you again, Mr. de La Palice jaclaz

It means ALL tokens. Here: http://www.robvanderwoude.com/batchfiles.php http://www.robvanderwoude.com/for.php http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ntfor.php http://www.robvanderwoude.com/ntfortokens.php jaclaz