jaclaz

Got it. But I also need the MBR and bootsector, see second part of this post: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...133933&st=7 jaclaz

Sure . Then (if FBINST didn't work) run from the laptop on the chosen stick fuwi's tool: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21702 and see if it boots on the laptop. If it does, try the stick on the Asus, if it does not work we get more evidence that the problem is in the ASUS BIOS. If it does not boot on the laptop, use HDhacker (on the laptop): http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ and save: MBR of the stick (first sector of physicaldrive) bootsector of the stick (first sector of logicaldrive for FAT 16/32 or first 16 sectors for NTFS) Compress the two resulting files in a .zip and attach it to your next post. jaclaz

Only too happy to hear a story of success. jaclaz

Oh, Oh, BAD news. My ideas now come at a price. Of course not in money, but Tulert seems to have (besides trying to do too many different attempts together on different hardware/software ) the "right" attitude and the "right (read "wrong" ) hardware. Maybe, if he agrees to play "lab rat" for us a little bit , we can see if all together we can finalize this thing about BIOSes that recognize sticks improperly as FD. @Tulert, please choose one, and one only of your devices, say the MemoRive 2GB. Have you handy (or can borrow, procure or steal ) another PC (another motherboard) running 2K or XP? Not that Vista is bad (actually it's worse than that IMHO) but I am not familiar with it and it may add a layer of problems in the steps I will suggest you. (and using anither motherboard would rule the (possibly faulty) specific BIOS out of the equation. Or can you run XP or a PE of some kind in a Virtual Machine? Or are you familiar with DOS/Command Line? About the "second partition" that RMPREPUSB adds, it is because in a few BIOSes it is reported that this helps in letting the BIOS see the stick as HDD. (which evidently is not working in your case). First thing I would try if I were you would be FBINST: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7932 jaclaz

Sure, that's what actually Disk Management does. And the little app by Uwe Sieber: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html didn't work? About entries starting with # I'm not sure to have ever seen them (or to have ever actually seen them and "coupled" them to something specific). I'll see what I can find on the topic. jaclaz

Topic splitted. jaclaz

Open a command prompt and type in it MOUNTVOL [ENTER] Result may look familiar to you : http://www.ss64.com/nt/mountvol.html (type 3) As well, I wouldn't touch the ones starting with #. I would rather look for problems in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Enum\USBSTOR, but of course I may be completely off-track. Here is a good place to start when dealing with this kind of problems: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/english.html http://www.uwe-sieber.de/usbdlm_e.html jaclaz

The workaround is copying them back. The solution has not been found (yet ) jaclaz

The one that normally works is the HDD one. If it does not work for you, it is possible that something is simply wrong in the stick (fixable) or in the BIOS (NOT-fixable). The "plain" HP Format utility is known, in some cases, to produce unbootable sticks. Do try the apps listed here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...87993&st=17 (after having zeroed out first 100 or 200 sectors, just to make sure you start from scratch) jaclaz

See if these help: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=8285&hl= http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=23092 jaclaz

The link given by GrofLuigi: http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-lba-48-bit.html actually concludes: meaning that if you take a SP3+ (slipstreamed) and you modify it's SETUPREG.HIV adding to it a key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet \Services \atapi \Parameters] EnableBigLba = 1 the "bigger-than-137-Gb" drive should be recognized in TXT setup mode also. I personally doubt that a CurrentControlSet is available on an offline hive, but you may want to try with ControlSet001. jaclaz

Would you put some gasoline in a diesel engine because that's what other people do with their (gasoline) engine? or would you put some diesel fuel in a gasoline engine because that's what other people do with their (diesel) engine? What happens using the Manufacturer's (WD in your case) diagnostic utilities? http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?lang=en http://support.wdc.com/product/download.as...mp;x=14&y=3 Or is that where the screenshot you posted comes from? Have you tried accessing it with Victoria or mhdd: http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.03-Victoria/ http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ Or maybe some other tool here: http://hddguru.com/ Even this: http://blog.atola.com/restoring-factory-hard-drive-capacity/ (WITHOUT actually pressing the "Restore Capacity" button) may give some hint about what is happening. At a more "high" level, have you tried running TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk on it? jaclaz

You are welcome. As said in the referenced post, both ways work, second only seems more "logic". jaclaz

What the heck? I did suggest you TWO utilities, then a post where the same TWO+another TWO=FOUR are suggested. WHEN you will have tried ALL FOUR of them, without success, do what ALREADY posted: If needed, specific instructions: TRY, one at the time, the apps listed in this post: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...87993&st=17 in the same order they were given AND keeping in mind the "general advice" given in FAQ #10: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...SB/USBfaqs.html STOP the first time one of them works. TRY variations using the SAME app that worked. jaclaz

... You talking to me ? I do believe you. Actually I've asked that ages ago (in an other life) but never got a relevant answer but this (MS) one. I must admit it still lets me wondering... where is all that "formatting" time going ? Is this one of your "picky on grammar" days? Let me reword this: as: No reference whatsoever to Ponch or any other member if not to leon, to whom the post was addressed. And let me rephrase this: as: jaclaz

Out of the blue, for no apparent reason, and possibly slightly (but not much ) OFF-TOPIC , a couple of possibly interesting links : AHCI vs. IDE mode benchmarks: http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/2...mark-advantage/ How to enable AHCI on Vista: http://expertester.wordpress.com/2008/07/1...ut-reformating/ jaclaz

Rest assured, a "Full Format" does NOT touch most sectors. Let's put it this way. Try formatting a partition, selecting "Full". How long does it take? Now use a pretty much low level app, like dsfo/dsfi, or any disk WIPING utility to write 00's to ALL sectors of the same partition once (single pass). How long does it take? Or, if you BOTH do not trust my word for it AND you don't want to test it yourself, let's use some math. Get any HD test app, like HDtune or HDtach, and measure your specific hard disk average write speed. The calculate how much time with that speed would take to write all the sectors in a given partition. When you have the need to format that partition, time how much it takes, and compare with the above calculated time. Is the time similar? Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting Please take note of the fundamental differences between a floppy formatting (which is at the same time a low-level and a HIGH-LEVEL type of formatting) and a HD formatting (which is EXCLUSIVELY a HIGH-LEVEL type of formatting, since several years). jaclaz

Lot of things may have gone wrong, but possibly it's a problem in the ID of the device somewhere in the Registry/.inf files. What class/subclass has the stick? And what class/subclass has the device that is "recognized"? What do you have in the Registry/.inf files? Check with DEVCON or programs like SIW: http://www.gtopala.com/ or http://rh-software.com/index.html Or you can go into device properties and try changing the driver, "forcing" it to the right USB Mass Storage Device one. jaclaz

Just to clear hopefully a possible misunderstanding. ANY HD needs to be partitioned (i.e. have a MBR and a partition table in it's first sector) it is possible however to create just one single partition extending over the entire hard disk capacity So I guess that the question was. "is it partitioned in several partitions/volumes? And the answer was: "No it is just a big partition spanning over the entire drive." For the record, and though noone posed the question, IMHO having a single huge partition spanning over the entire drive is the LEAST advised way to have a disk partitioned as ANY activity on it (like defragging, cloning, recovering from possible failures, etc., etc.) is likely to either take more time or make things more difficult when compared to having a number of "decently sized" volumes/partitions. jaclaz

Start reading this (AND given links): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=120423 jaclaz

Who knows? What already suggested here on post #4: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...133086&st=3 Additionally you may want to try the other apps listed here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...87993&st=17 jaclaz

Just to avoid any possible misunderstanding. A FORMAT (either "quick" or "full") won't even touch, say, 99% of sectors. A FORMAT ONLY writes to a very small number of sectors: the MBR and the very few sectors holding filesystem data, such as bootsectors, FAT's and NTFS MFT and similar ones. jaclaz

My guess is that since (with several tricks/tweaks) EVEN Win 98 can be run on the EEEpc: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=122401 making 2K running on it shouldn't be much complex . The only problem appears to be the webcam on some models: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=46656 The 70x's have a working solutions, whilst the 90x's seem like not. jaclaz

Yep. I can assure you that that particular option wasn't EVER there, even if I didn't test each and every release of the tool. You see, a USB stick is either a "HD-like" device (with MBR and hidden sectors) or a "superfloppy" or "partition-like" device. (there is an exception which is constituted by the rare CD-ROM emulating sticks and by U3 devices - which however are seen as two separate LUN's, first one "CD-like" and second one "HD-like" or "superfloppy-like", of which in any case, the tool can only image the second). Filesystems used on them are "HD-like" filesystems, i.e. commonly FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS in the "Windows" world and in some cases EXT2/3 FS in the "Linux" world. A .iso is actually an image of a "CD-like" device, in most cases using either CDFS or UDFS. A tool that would accept as input a "HD-like" or "superfloppy" device and produce as output a .ISO would NOT be an imaging tool, but rather a "filesystem/device conversion" tool. Even to this there would be a partial exception, i.e. the "HD emulation" format of the El-Torito ISO9660 (and later modifications) CD standard. But there would be not much sense for an imaging/cloning program to store the image in a "converted" format that needs to be "back converted" at the time of restoring/duplicating it. Sure it does , as well as several other apps, listed in the given thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=100299&hl= (and a few others possibly NOT listed there), like: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4711 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7783 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7786 The whole point I was trying to make was that it is a possibility, not necessarily, "the best", and DEFINITELY NOT: as it simply DOES NOT do that. jaclaz

If I may , it should be "as 'out of control' as your others, referenced above, AND your others, of which just a few are referenced below:" http://www.p2pforum.it/forum/showthread.php?t=386368 http://forum.html.it/forum/showthread.php?...hreadid=1339895 http://forum.html.it/forum/showthread.php?...hreadid=1340071 http://www.appdeploy.com/messageboards/tm.asp?m=49253 http://www.megalab.it/forum/programmazione...ute-t54232.html http://www.sysadmin.it/Forum/tabid/57/afv/...IT/Default.aspx http://www.sysadmin.it/Forum/tabid/57/afv/...IT/Default.aspx http://www.ilsoftware.it/forum/viewtopic.p...=33&t=76032 http://forum.html.it/forum/showthread.php?...hreadid=1338022 http://www.appdeploy.com/messageboards/tm.asp?m=49374 jaclaz