jaclaz

Sure I thought your method was based on a "real" .iso, i.e that the "XP_PRO_SP3.ISO" contained a "full" install. The "beta 1" is this one, right?: http://www.msfn.org/board/install-2000-xp-...37-page-27.html If I may, additional to the instructions, you could do a DIR /S D:\>C:\isodir.txt with the "XP_PRO_SP3.ISO" before and after the addition, so that it is clear. jaclaz

jaclaz

not root partition Yes, a "glitch in the matrix" , sorry. I confused "root partition" with "root device", but : You mistyped "current_boot_device" for "current_root_device" (in this case it makes no difference since boot and root device are the same). Or is the README_GRUB4DOS.txt to be corrected? Correcting previous post. jaclaz

Just a note. Using: the whole image is loaded into memory. This on low-ram machines may be a problem. In these cases you should try using: BUT you need to make sure that the .iso on the stick is contiguous. Contig or wincontig will do: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb897428.aspx http://wincontig.mdtzone.it/en/ More details: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/map.htm jaclaz

Actually on MSFN we actually WRITE the results of Google for that search. Personally I don't think much of the "refurbished", on laptops. I mean the source of a "refurb shop" is usually large companies that trade-in their "old set" of laptops and buy a new set. You don't know how the machines were used, how many hours they were used, if they were subject to temperature drops or falls, all factors that may influence residual "life" of a notebook. I would first try a few of the local PC shops, often they have some trade-in that is perfect, and very little used, coming form someone that has bought a laptop just to have a smaller PC in-house, that never traveled with it, and only used a little to surf the internet. A typical checklist for a refurb (mind you I am not talking of "exceptionally good" refurbs, I am talking of the "average" that you are likely to find): Check the following: is external case "sound", without cracks? Yes/No does video work? Yes/No does backlighting work? Yes/No does keyboard work? Yes/No does touchpad work? Yes/No is RAM OK? Yes/No is HD OK? Yes/No do ports work Yes/No [*]If any of the ansers above is No, goto next PC in the lot. [*]When all PC's in the lot have run, check those remaining that have a "No" in the chcklist and replace part with another - as well used - part from another in the batch. [*] Try to reassemble the biggest number of laptops this way. [*]Throw away the rest. [*]Clean the case. [*]Clean the fan. [*]Sell as refurbished. The whole point is that there is no way to know if a component that today is perfectly working, will blow out tomorrow, the only exception being (maybe) the hard disk, that may show signs of premature wear, but even on hard disks there is no reliable way to predict their residual life. Some refutrb firms give a warranty, that is the thing you should look for. Also you should go exactly the other way round, when offered a Make/model, search with google if the particular make/model has a record of breakdowns of problems, if it has, stay clear of it, and find another refurb. Just as an example, Acer Aspire 136x and 152x series - which are otherwise good laptops - are reknown for a defect in their video card, a GeForce Go that has problems in the soldering of the GPU. The replacement part is very difficult to find (please read impossible) at a decent price, the alternate fix of reballing is costly, and you are likely to have a perfectly working laptop that suddenly dies on you with a black screen. jaclaz

NO. He is NOT trying to boot. He doesn't need the actual MBR CODE and PBR CODE. All is needed is MBR DATA and PBR DATA. If another system can access the filesystem (mind you NOT booting from the stick) these DATA must be correct. @Lonecrusader Start a new thread. Use HDhacker on your XP or dd from Linux and post in a .zip file a binary dump of your MBR and PBR (in hdhacker respectively first sector of PhysicalDrive and first sector of LogicalDrive) jaclaz

jaclaz

Cannot say for other people here, but putting awergh, fdv and me in the "You guys paying a lot more" is unfair. Personally, besides being notoriously cheap , I am also one of the few that actually still USE NT4.00 normally: http://www.msfn.org/board/still-running-wi...56.html&hl= But of course new OS have new vulnerabilities, the old ones are boring..... but still dangerous. In other words, and of course IMHO: Is NT 4.00 a great, simple OS? Yes. Is it appropriate today as a server? No, unless you have a "vintage" machine that always ran it, with all the drivers for the hardware, and still you are exposed to some unpatched vulnerabilities. Would 2000 be better? Yes, because it has better hardware support and some added features. jaclaz

You are welcome. More than a hint, I have a certain experience in this kind of stuff, and I have actually (seriously) had people telling me they couldn't find the "Any" key. http://www.tomwet.de/shop/catalog/images/AnyKey3.jpg I try as much as I can to suggest "foolproof" approaches, BUT: jaclaz

The trick is knowing that tomorrow never comes : http://www.msfn.org/board/solution-seagate...-page-2220.html jaclaz

Hmm, on many motherboards you can press F12 till the end of time, but you WON'T be able to change boot order , and on some that have this feature the key is F11 and I am almost sure I had a laptop that used F2 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_disk#Booting_from_a_disk jaclaz

Maybe you could make a .inf: WillyPad http://snoopy81.ifrance.com/pages/willy.htm has a Wizard and a REG importer that usually works very well. jaclaz

May I suggest we start talking "letter neutral" (it may help in understanding which is which). From the screenshot there is a FIRST DISK (Disk 0) with three partitions in it. Can we start calling them: (0,0) Hidden 7 install partition 196 Mb NTFS NO drive letter assigned (0,1) Recovery partition 750 Mb NTFS letter E: assigned when booted "normally" (0,2) Main partition 232 Gb NTFS letter C: assigned when booted "normally" SECOND DISK (USB stick) with one partition (1,0) 1,47 Gb FAT32 letter F: assigned when booted "normally" As said, the problem seems to me ONLY due to the fact that (0,1) is Active. When the PC was setup, surely (0,1) was NOT active, and most probably also hidden, thus on install the scan went: (0,0) Fixed->Hidden -> Ignore (0,1) Fixed->Hidden -> Ignore (0,2) Fixed->First Primary Active -> assign C:\ (1,0) Removable->NOT PRESENT -> Ignore CD/DVD Removable-> D:\ When the Recovery partition was unhidden, it got next letter, E:\ When you insert the stick, it gets F:\. Please note how even if the Recovery partition was NOT hidden (but NOT active), lettering would have been the same: (0,0) Fixed->Hidden->Ignore (0,1) Fixed->Primary NOT Active-> Ignore (0,2) Fixed->First Primary Active -> assign C:\ (1,0) Removable->NOT PRESENT -> Ignore CD/DVD Removable-> D:\ Another OS, a "new kid on the block" assigning letters to the drives, with Recovery partition Active: (0,0) Fixed->Hidden->Ignore (0,1) Fixed->Primary Active -> assign C:\ (0,2) Fixed->Primary NOT Active ->Ignore (1,0) Fixed->NOT PRESENT -> Ignore CD/DVD Removable-> D:\ (0,2) Removable->Primary NOT Active ->assign E:\ But if the stick was inserted (as boot media), lettering should be: (0,0) Fixed->Hidden->Ignore (0,1) Fixed->Primary Active -> assign C:\ (0,2) Fixed->Primary NOT Active ->Ignore (1,0) Removable->Primary Active -> assign D:\ CD/DVD Removable-> E:\ (0,2) Fixed->Primary NOT Active ->assign F:\ jaclaz

Well, we are a bit ahead of geocities . http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=60 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2325 http://bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm Just for your interest, geocities is dead, long live reocities: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9943 It is of course very partial, and in the works, but you can already re-find some sites that cannot be completely recovered from the Wayback Machine. jaclaz

Maybe it's this one: http://www.beginningtoseethelight.org/ntsecurity/index.php The behaviour seems similar: http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discuss...der-delete.html Is it this one? http://www.secnewsgroups.net/group/microso.../topic6412.aspx jaclaz

Well, from my understanding, cdob menu.lst is logical and working, whilst your is "queer". This should mean that cdob has "normal" hardware and setup and that you have a "queer" one. Let's see: title Windows XP Pro SP3 x86 Setup root (hd0,0) <- this is not needed, if you booted from (hd0,0) root will already be on (hd0,0) map --mem /XP_INST.IMA (fd0) <- OK map --mem /XP_INST.IMA (fd1) <- OK map --mem /XPSP3.ISO (0xFF) <- OK map (hd0) () <- I simply cannot understand this which should mean map (hd0) to (hd0,0) as () is "current root" map () (hd0) <- I simply cannot understand this which shold mean map (hd0,0) to (hd0) as () is "current root" map --hook chainloader (0xFF)/I386/SETUPLDR.BIN <- OK though I personally would have also set root to (0xff) About the error you were having, you reported once as "file is missing" and another time as "disk is missing", you must make up your mind, and as advised, issue the commands on command line and report WHICH command ouputs the error and the EXACT error, also maybe I missed it, but re-posting a description of your setup (hard disks involved, etc, etc.) may be useful to understand the problem. In other words, the: exchanges first and second drive should be is equivalent to: which seems to me, at the most, completely unneeded. jaclaz

If I were were you I would try to please your granny, it seems like strange things happen when she complains about something/womeone. Seriously, it could well be RAM, or even a bad cable for the hard disk. Can you try the hard disk (as slave) on another machine - possibly with the HD manufacturer testing software? Any strange noises coming from the HD? jaclaz

I know what an issue tracker is. It was just some sarcasm. For future memory: Please also note that if you download the EXECUTABLE from here: http://wudt.codeplex.com/Release/ProjectRe...ReleaseId=37074 you have to agree to it's GPL license before downloading, while if you get it from here: http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Windo...-7/category/102 you don't. BOTH executables (actually they are differently named but have same MD5: af911be206423bf440ea9d4df075a632 Windows7-USB-DVD-Download-Tool-Installer-en-US.exe af911be206423bf440ea9d4df075a632 Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe If you Run the executable you NEED NOT to agree to the GPL license. (I tried to just start the app - but not have installed the IMAPI 2.0 on this machine, so it is possible that the request comes later) jaclaz

They also put back the page here: http://store.microsoft.com/Help/ISO-Tool And an empty issue tracker: http://wudt.codeplex.com/WorkItem/List.aspx It means that the previous hiccup was not an issue? jaclaz

If I may, if you change the signature in the target, it is not anymore "cloning", it is "duplicating". I.e. if "cloning" you write to the MBR of the "new" drive the Signature of the "old" one. Have you checked the BCD by importing it (as a Registry Hive) with Regedit? It should be possible to automate registry changes with REG.EXE. Have you tried using this tool (beware, UNFINISHED, may or may NOT work/be useful ) to peek (and possibly poke) in the BCD?: RawReg: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4684 jaclaz

I am not sure to get it. The only thing I cannot see is a drive "d:" From the posted screenshot: Drive F:\ is the Removable USB thingy. Your "main" partition with Drive Letter C:\ and the "Recovery" Partition with Drive Letter E:\. The Recovery partition is "Active". Why? Which device did you boot from? The internal hard disk? jaclaz

Sure , but actually: it seems like the change to optimized defaults was performed manually by Yzöwl. I suspect that change more than the actual BIOS update, but it could well be one, the other or both. jaclaz

Unrelated, but not much , and before this info pops out of my head, I am sure Multibooter will appreciate this (unless it's non-news): CP/M Player for Win32 Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP Console: http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/ http://homepage3.nifty.com/takeda-toshiya/cpm/index.html jaclaz

Which files? (can you name a few?) Are you sure they are actually files (and not hard links or mount points or some other non-real-file entity)? jaclaz

Right question. Wrong place to ask it. We have a whole Forum for "installing Windows from USB", right here: http://www.msfn.org/board/install-windows-usb-f157.html with a number of different ways (and NO, a "plain" winnt32.exe won't work). Easiest would be this one: http://www.msfn.org/board/33-t120444.html If you want to go your own way, you will have to re-start from the "historical thread": http://www.msfn.org/board/25-t61384.html jaclaz