jaclaz

Ever heard of DOSSTART.BAT? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/135174/en-us jaclaz

Once ruled out Crystal balls, Tarots and I-Ching, not much remains. Patterns of dust on hard disk covers? But it won't work for new systems. Pig spleen has not proved as very reliable in other fields of prediction, AFAIK: http://www.almanac.com/image/pig-spleen-we...rediction-chart jaclaz

Maybe it's late, but probably loading the ERD50 as .iso or .img (with grub4dos or memdisk) would have solved you more than a few of the problems. Just in case: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9740 As well, mkisofs.exe allows for a "sort.txt" file where you give a "weight" or priority to files, this is used besides avoiding the "gaps" that may make files needed for booting beyond reach of the bootsector/bootloader, to speed up things (files burned in the same order they are booted). http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20248&st=15 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8049 http://www.911cd.net/forums/index.php?show...c=8053&st=2 jaclaz

The actual patent of stoopidity goes to Sdelete, (sadly to say so) it's Author and of course the DOD. This myth about the several passes will probably never die. http://www.msfn.org/board/hard-drive-secur...pe-t125900.html Such an option should be completely removed from ANY such app, it's a personal fight I try to carry on since a bit of time with no actual results, unfortunately: http://www.forensicfocus.com/index.php?nam...opic&t=3237 Result: http://eraser.heidi.ie/ If the developers still want to perpetuate it, they should have the decency to put the option behind a two level minimum password protected access. jaclaz

Let's for the moment assume they are not. (under the logic that IF they were, you would have it working) http://www.computerhope.com/cdromd.htm Either use the above or post BOTH your Autoexec.bat AND config.sys. Also, pay particular attention to the part: jaclaz

Have you got anything to lose? jaclaz

Well, the Administrator NOT necessarily has ownership of "everything". Why do you think that hard-to-die 2K users like yours truly love to describe XP as "a bettered win2K, only worse"? jaclaz

Most probably Qemu wouldn't be that slow (in the sense of much slower than Virtual PC) on that machine, and surely it is less picky. Both 4.3.2 and 5.1 versions need the Pentium II? jaclaz

@dencorso To sum up: Q1. How can I zero out slack space? A1. By using any of these 5 utilities. Q2. Well, which one? A2a. Killdisk A2b. Sdelete -c Action taken: Sdelete -z With all due respect to Multibooter, I cannot see how you can feel guilty of anything. @Multibooter The really bad news is that you will need to re-run again the Sdelete with the appropriate switch as random characters won't compress well, if you want to minimize the size of the image/clone. jaclaz

Really? And what is the answer to FAQ #2? And are you booting to a PE? jaclaz

You are not missing anything, you are confusing sector size with cluster size. Which earns you a C- And one hour in the corner behind the blackboard. jaclaz

Yep, that's what I meant. MSCDEX was released long before the ISO9660-1999 extensions were out, and a large number of DVD, even if not using UDF, use the isolevel only present in the extensions. http://www.mrichter.com/cdr/primer/udf.htm http://old.nabble.com/FreeDOS-reads-DVD-di...td14611122.html I don't think there is anything capable of UDF on CD/DVD for "pure" DOS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Disk_Format Maybe sometimes the good FreeDOS guys will make one. jaclaz

Really? I guess why we have a different method for "boot from a PE": http://www.msfn.org/board/install-usb-afte...pe-t121446.html jaclaz

Yep, FAQ #2: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=116766 Wintoflash should use the same methods as we do: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=137540 So it is likely that the problem is the same. jaclaz

AFAIK, there won't be a problem with Filesystems, the bootsector has a field for Sector size (or "Bytes per Sector"), but rather with a number of OS/apps that "assume" that a sector is 512 bytes. Offset 0x0B is in FAT12/16/32 and NTFS a two bytes field (thus allowing as much as FFFF/65536 bytes per sector) Of course it is very probable that a number of things may be bugged simply because they "ignore" this setting, as the 0002/512 has been there since the dawn of PC's. jaclaz

The 4.3.2 (unlike the 5.1) has been reported as working. See if any here helps: http://www.msfn.org/board/virtual-machine-98-me-t120495.html http://www.msfn.org/board/connectix-virtua...-1-t130286.html I never heard of "Windows Application Compatibility Mode" under 9x/Me Or are you trying to run it on 2K/XP? jaclaz

Track 0 is actually (normally) first 63 sectors. A small bug seems to affect MBRWIZ: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...8168&st=143 (most probably completely unrelated - but I won't trust MBRwiz right now) I personally only use dsfo/dsfi (as I know what they do) and MBRFIX (which as well I have tested extensively). http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/fr...ware/index.html http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm Examples of my personal approach (for the reasons explained below): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=3191 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5000 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=2362 The point, as far as I understand, is that you have an "atypical" configuration (please read as System Commander) and you want to do an "atypical" cloning (meaning that you are not doing a "real" cloning, which is a dd-like copy, or if you prefer a "forensic sound" one). So it is difficult to suggest you an app over the other. I can share my approach to this kind of things: NEVER, and when I say NEVER I do mean NEVER "trust" anything that Commercial (or Freeware) utilities give as "implied" or do "automagically". use as simple an approach as possible, leave "standard" tools for "standard" chores to people needing "standard" results ALWAYS, and when I say ALWAYS I do mean ALWAYS have a way back or alternate way should "chosen" one fail. use "plain" or however "documented" formats ONLY (and again I mean ONLY) Usual critics to the above: but it is difficult but I have to learn about a lot of things but it is not one click only but .... To which the reply is usually: but it is SAFE for your DATA. This said, I would try Odin: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5871 http://sourceforge.net/projects/odin-win/ and Partition Saving: http://www.partition-saving.com/ and Selfimage: http://selfimage.excelcia.org/ Also, when PROPERLY accompanied with an application taking care of MBR and hidden sectors, DriveImageXML is not that bad (I would have never thought I would have ever written this sentence ): http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22563 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=22984 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=23408&st=0 (though I never got around finding the compression used for compressed images) About NTFS versions: http://www.msfn.org/board/ntfs-versions-t38439.html Most probably the version of GHOST you are using "thinks" you should be using XP instead of 2K. Volume ID can be gathered by using DIR or LABEL, and set besides through an HEX editor or dsfo/dsfi or similar dd-like tools, with a nice app from sysinternals, called, strangely enough, VolumeID : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897436.aspx jaclaz

Well, you can use GMAIL POP3 or IMAP access as well with M2, though it is not officially supported (WHY? ) it has been reported to work allright: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=13287 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=78799 jaclaz

Macrium Reflect Free does apparently not run under Win98, so it probably has not been tested sufficiently with partitions created under/for Win98. Or more simply it was born after the "official" death of Win98.... and uses some NT only ways.... jaclaz

@cluberti But is XP support definitely working or not? : http://www.cluberti.com/blog/2009/08/10/md...from-a-usb-key/ As is it seems a bit ambiguous... jaclaz

Any of the above should work allright, I would use killdisk as first approach as it has, if I remember correctly, both a Windows and a Dos version. If you think your experience is crazy, read attentively this (still largely UNresolved): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=9897&hl= I am not sure about the 3.00 and 3.01: one of the othere things that everyone "assumes" is about NTFS versions). Care to explain how you checked the version? I don't want to "talk bad" about an application I don't really know/used extensively, but I do remember that many, many years ago I did test System Commander and then discarded it forever as it had "queer" ways. At the time, it was however VERY powerful, nowadays, we have grub4dos and with all due respect System Commander is - to say the least - outdated. I would try to however besides CLONING (with a separate program or whatever as you did) the first 63 hidden sectors (or more) as, if I recall correctly, System Commander uses them (or part of them) AND "backup/restore" the actual partition Volume ID's AND Disk Signature. It is also possible that System Commander uses some kind of checksum of either MBR or Partition Tables or bootsectors... or whatever, you would need two fresh installations to compare... Just for your interest, since a couple of unfortunate "accidents", agian MANY years ago, I DO NOT trust either: Partition Magic (since version 3 that worked allright) Acronis apps (for a number of reasons, including their "habit" to install in windows Filter Drivers) I also never used (if not very, very old versions) of GHOST. Heck, we have an entire range of freeware, and among them quite a few OpenSource alternatives: http://www.msfn.org/board/disk-imaging-sof...99.html&hl= Why not using them? jaclaz

Hey peeps are you joking or WAHT? The good MS guys must have had a really GOOD crystal ball to make MSCDEX.EXE compatible with something that WAS NOT EVEN INVENTED at the time. SHSUCDX might be more appropriate : http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/shsucdx.html Homesite at the moment down: http://adoxa.110mb.com/ Original site gone for good: http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/ Still available : http://www.reocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/ jaclaz

It's back on. Just a reminder: http://www.msfn.org/board/boot-ini-entry-a...ve-t135142.html The "shiftdisks" idea wasn't finalized at the time: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8498 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=8498&st=16 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=8498&st=22 Maybe now that we have a "practical" use, we can have it. jaclaz

Yep, this way we can exclude the source as cause and analyze other possible aspects. No prob. jaclaz

Both sources are NOT "kosher". The XP Home is evidently a "WAREZ" release , "wrongly" burned, too : The XP Pro appears like a "mish-mash", nlited version of some kind: Original XP files are dated:08/23/2001 01:00 SP2 files are dated: 08/04/2004 02:07 SP3 files have various dates, between 2006 and 14-04-2008 The CD has been compiled on 01/01/1601 02:00 AM <DIR> No way to say if the above is part (or "root") of the problem, but you do understand how we cannot support non-standard sources, don't you? jaclaz