jaclaz

Try booting from a DOS floppy and see if the behaviour is the same. FYI: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/cdfaq.htm#cdstupseq Usually it's the sides of the tray clogged with dust (attached to the lube that it's already there, put in factory). Another point is the gear rack (rarely this is the cause). Yet another point is the "latch" that initiates the tray movement on some models. The accent is more on "cleaning" than on "lubricating": http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_cdfaq4.html#CDFAQ_027 http://www.repairfaq.org/REPAIR/F_cdfaq4.html#CDFAQ_028 Clean plastic/nylon parts is usually smooth enough/has very low friction. A VERY SMALL quantity of clean silicon/synthetic grease may help. Grease/oil clogged with dust can jam everything. jaclaz

You are welcome. Another small thing that you may want to think about: Q: Why do you want to make an "emergency" CD/DVD with a "simple" floppy image? A: Because either of the following is true: That machine has NOT a floppy drive. That machine has a floppy drive but it doesn't work. That machine has a floppy drive, it does work, but I have no floppies handy. That machine has a floppy drive, it does work, and I have lots of floppy media, but I don't trust floppies. If you answer 1., 2. or 3. it may be useful some reference to using a floppy image instead of a "real" floppy and floppy drive, and to tools like Ken Kato's VFD or Olof Lagerkvist's IMDISK (NT based systems only) or Winimage (Shareware, both Win9x/ME and NT based) or,(only DOS/Win9x/Me) use grub4dos to map a floppy image. Keep up the good work! jaclaz

A small addition, if I may: The floppy needs to be formatted under 2K/XP in order to have the "proper" bootsector invoking NTLDR. The "full reference to create such an "emergency floppy" is given here: http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595/en-us A similar bootfloppy for Vista/Server2008/Windows 7 is detailed here: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/floppy.html This said, I personally would use grldr as the no-emulation bootsector and would create a .iso with mkisofs, containing any number of floppy images to be loaded through grub4dos. Also, if you don't have Nero, IMGBURN is a very good, small FREEWARE app to do the same: http://www.imgburn.com/ jaclaz

I don't think it is the OS that does that. It is usually a feature of the drive, when you insert a disk (read when you close the tray) it spins briefly to check if a media is loaded, if it finds it continues spinning, if it doesn't find one it stops soon after. JFYI, out of say, 20 Cd/DVD drives that had "mechanical problems" opening/closing the tray, 19 were fixed by simply thouroughly cleaning the mechanics and reapplying a very small quantity of an appropriate lubricant/grease. What I normally use (this is not advertising, just a report) is "Super Lube" a synthetic grease with Syncolon (read PTFE or teflon). jaclaz

Hey Drugwash , you understand that "US europeans" can be read differently from what you meant, do you? A whole new breed of people, still with short sleeved shirts and ties, but more open minded when it comes to nudity? jaclaz

Check you command line for mkisofs against this one (which is known to be generally working): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=94398&hl= jaclaz

Yes. In "mixed" environments, i.e. when something is powered/connected to one PC and something else is powered/connected to "something else", including another PC, you need to pay attention to GROUND. Connect together the ground of all equipment, or you are likely to get some garbage in hyperterminal. The "derived" guide by CarterInCanada: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=133387&hl= is remarkably clear/advised. jaclaz

Yep, they do. But the ASUS should have "correct" nx255x63 However this explains perfectly why we had the problem with CHS. If you want, just to make double sure, I can make a MBR with nx240x63 geometry. "See" you when you are back. jaclaz

What are you using to actually write/edit the .bat/.cmd? Maybe it's a problem with character sets. try doing the following: Open c:\test.txt with your ediitor. Can you see the Á or has it become a Beta? jaclaz

It seems like something (unknown) prevents from "properly" creating the filesystem. But really cannot say what. The laptop appears to "like" 0E (LBA) and not 06 (CHS), but using the first64.dat it does boot properly. The first315.dat is identical (apart volume serial) to first64.dat but has added EMPTY FAT tables, so it should behave exactly like first64.dat. It is possible that your laptop is one of the very few ones (I seem to remember IBM ones) that use nx240x63 geometry. However, get back to the condition that was working (as per posted pictures). Now you need to use a hex editor to change the embedded menu.lst in grub4dos: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=6775&st=5 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=7231&st=25 or grubinst as in here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...134808&st=6 to change the "embedded" menu.lst in grub4dos to make it search for grldr on "floppy" too. (i.e. remove the "--ignore-floppies" from entries) in order to replicate on the Asus the same behaviour of the laptop. For the moment, boot to the ASUS, get to command line and issue these commands: map (fd0) (hd31,0) [ENTER] map --hook [ENTER] root (hd31,0) [ENTER] chainloader /ntldr [ENTER] boot [ENTER] You should get back to the BOOT.INI choices. The other thing to try is to see if, since you have a USBest UT165 controller, the correspondent "manufacturer tool" can "flip the removable bit". The tool should be this one: http://flashboot.ru/Files-file-219.html http://flashboot.ru/uploads/files/public/U...5_1.65.17.0.rar The manual for it should be this one: http://flashboot.ru/uploads/files/public/U...ual_EN_V4.0.rar If it works, the stick becomes a "fixed" device, just like any hard disk, and thus the ASUS should recognize it properly. jaclaz

It greatly depends on the actual model of the stick, a few are simply two plastic shells that you can separate by using a knife (you will probably break anyway the case, but if you are careful with these it can be re-glued together) some are more "tough" and need to be cut/broken. jaclaz

Only things that seems possible at first sight, since you tested almost everything, is that since you are using the .iso bootsector (chainloader (hd32)) it is this latter one that fails, or maybe you are missing a root command. Try chainloading the actual bootmanager in the .iso, like title WinPEx86 find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /WinPEx86.iso map /WinPEx86.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader /BOOTMGR jaclaz

NO. DO NOT change PCB's. jaclaz

"Search Assistant" sounds like a possibility. jaclaz

And, of course, someone is NOT agreeing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/cif-...gy-kinetic-road The store however has many more "green features": http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/index.asp?Pag...amp;NewsID=1095 Today is one of those days that my math does not help me much. One says 30 kW in an hour, the other one says that each car pass produces 0.002 kW/h, i.e. 30000 W and 2 W/h respectively . Thus to have 30000 W produced in an hour, you have an average 30000/60=500 W in a minute, and 500/60=8.333 W in a second. The above should mean that EVERY second 8.333/2=4.166 cars have to pass on the plate. In typical 8 hours/day opening hours, that would mean that 4.166x60x60x8=120,000 cars need to access the parking, ALL passing on the plate. jaclaz

Another way to ponder: @ECHO OFF SET drives= SET separator= FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=\ " %%A in ('fsutil fsinfo drives^|more') DO CALL :SET_var %%A %%B SET drives GOTO :EOF :SET_var SET separator=, IF NOT %2.==. SHIFT&SET separator= Set drives=%drives%%separator%%1 GOTO :EOF (doesn't need Delayed Expansion enabled) jaclaz

Well, actually this is more or less (read exactly) what minlogon does. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms...mbedded.5).aspx Now, a freeware/Open Source minlogon replacement would be a nice thing to have. jaclaz

There are 10 kinds of people....: http://www.oreillynet.com/etel/blog/2004/0...f_people_e.html Possible soundtrack theme: B) It would come out as a hit among geeks. jaclaz

A similar solution to the one by Scr1ptW1zard , possibly simpler : @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR /F "tokens=1,2 delims=: " %%A in ('fsutil fsinfo drives^|more') DO ( IF NOT %%B.==\. (SET drives=%%B:) ELSE (SET drives=!drives!,%%A:) ) SET drives ENDLOCAL jaclaz

Unfortunately it seems like the WHOLE image is made of 00's. I am scanning it right now, but in about first 2/3 of it I couldn't find but zeroes. This is NOT "normal". To get to this condition one of the following cases applies: stick has been (accidentally or intentionally) wiped (to wipe a flash memory means writing 00's to it, which for an 8 Gb stick should take several minutes, so you should have noticed it) stick has been "zapped" or "fried" by some overcurrent or overvoltage (but usually when this happens it is the controller that gets fried, see below) something is wrong in the hardware (the controller seems OK, as the stick is recognized by Windows, so it should be the actual flash, but if you are lucky it could also be a "real hardware" failure, such as a cold or broken soldering) I guess that your only remaining thing to try is to "crack" open the stick enclosure and inspect both visually and with a ohmmeter the continuity of tracks and chips's pins. If this check reveals no problems, depending on the value you attribute to the data on the stick, it may be the case to ask a professional to try and take off the stick the flash and mount it on another (identical) stick/controller. Of course you can do this attempt by yourself, but managing surface mounted components (as stick chips usually are) is not that easy for a non-expert and with "rudimental" tools, I guess it depends on your manual skills and experience. jaclaz P.S.: For the record and for other users, the image once compressed, resulted in a 4.7 Mb file, not as initially posted 4.7 Gb.

Well, for a "general search and replace" tool the "reference app" should be gsar http://home.online.no/~tjaberg/ (as opposed to "line oriented" tools like Fedit) jaclaz

NO. (AFAIK) Maybe if you post an example of the FOR loop that you have in mind there could be some workaround. .unsure: jaclaz

Wouldn't Fedit do? Check these: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=51337 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=48200 jaclaz

To be very accurate Maxwell Equations DO NOT "govern" anything. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/govern Maxwell theories and equations on electromagnetics are the best known today explanations about the behaviour of EM. EM (like everything else) "governs" itself pretty well. (and did so a loong time before Maxwell was born) jaclaz

the 4.7 GB size of the compressed image is (besides being "huge" ) a good sign that at least some data is still on the stick. jaclaz