jaclaz

Sorry I don't get it. Would you expect that a password protection of any kind can be worked around by "deleting" the password"? Or would you want a prompt saying something like: Of course a password protection is VERY difficult to work around (if possible at all) in a reasonable time. There are a several TENS of ways/programs to password protect a file, or are you talking about Filesystem protection? You need to be more specific, giving a detailed example. jaclaz

Following is NOT an advertisement of any kind, just a link to show you what the POS computer could (and should) have been: http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page http://fit-pc2.com/wiki/index.php?title=Gallery And of course a POS running Vista seems to me like total crazyness. (even one running XP, for that matters , WEPOS is already overkill!) POS should use ....POS Operating Systems, not "mainstream desktop OS": http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa479379.aspx jaclaz

Didn't I? I guess that someone else is not reading accurately other people posts... jaclaz

Giving them a self-burning file: CD Self Burner http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=4398 Or IMGBURN: http://www.imgburn.com/ jaclaz

Today is June, 5th 2009. The thread you reference is from 2006. Check the linked to files: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=104188 GRUB4DOS grub4dos 0.4.4 March 31, 2009 Download grubinst grubinst 1.0.1 December 30, 2006 Download WINGRUB WINGRUB 0.02 Build 6 October 5, 2004 Wouldn't you think that a file dated October 5, 2004 and with version 0.02 is a bit outdated by something dated March 31, 2009 at version 0.4.4 ? I did read very attentively your post. In each and every entry you posted you are chainloading the bootsector of the partition. (chainloader +1) This WON'T work on Logical Volumes inside Extended. You DID NOT explain in sufficient detail your partitioning scheme, maybe by "extended holder" you mean an "extended partition" and thus ALL your partitons are Logical Volumes? Rest assured, someone knows about it. You were told what is causing the error. You might want to extend "the most part" to "enough to boot something, anything". You can save yourself a bit of time and lots of giggles. Grub4dos will produce the same errors, as the basic assumption (chainloading a bootsector of a Logical Volume - if not properly patched) simply won't work. jaclaz

What is "wingrub" supposed to be? There are THREE programs around: LEGACY GRUB grub4dos GRUB 2 The most "flexible" right now is grub4dos. Get version 0.4.4, here: http://nufans.net/grub4dos/ Read the Guide to find the most suitable way to load/install it: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm If you want to install it to the MBR, grub4dos toolbox is very handy: http://grub4dostoolbox.sourceforge.net/ HOW did you partition (as said needlessly in my personal view) your hard disk? I guess that you have something like: (hd0,0) Primary Partition (hd0,1) Primary Partition (hd0,2) Primary Partition everything from (hd0,3) to (hd0,n) Logical Volumes inside Extended Partition NO OS will be able to boot from a Logical Volume inside Extended Partition through using the Logical Volume bootsector, unless it is patched expressly to allow that. Some OS (DOS) won't boot from a non-first non-primary partition. Even if you want to keep your partitioning scheme, you do not actually need to hide each and every other partition. Making a Logical Volume Active, makes no sense. If you want to continue, you need to either: patch the bootsectors of each Logical volume or actually use one of grub4dos features, i.e. direct chainloading of system files (in order to completely by-pass the bootsector) Read these: http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/ http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/ptedit.htm And, whenever you are testing something in grub/grub4dos, use Command Line: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/basics.htm http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/cli.htm and use as extensively as possible the [TAB] autocompletion features, so that you see what actually grub4dos "sees". jaclaz

There is an Italian member from Milano who fixed his own and already has the tools. Try PMing him, he is Tristano_74: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showuser=228402 If he does not reply in a couple of days, PM me, I will send an e-mail to him. (you understand that I cannot give you his e-mail addy directly, don't you?) Also, you should read the preamble and the eplogue to the Italian translation: You surely understand why I would never risk attempting the fixing procedure on someone else's HD. jaclaz

JFYI : http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/09/post_122.html jaclaz

In the U.S., not in English (meaning British English): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterclockwise jaclaz

Sure it can be either Chinglish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinglish or Engrish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engrish There are entire sites dedicated to it. You must understand that speaking or writing English for a foreigner is anyway difficult and inevitably leads to some errors/mistakes, expecially if the author is someone that speaks and writes in several languages or comes from a country where a different kind of alphabet is used, this is particularly evident with native Japanese and Chinese, which do not have an alphabet at all, but rather ideograms or logograms: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram the actual mental way of dealing with this kind of writing is fairly different from the way westerners are used to. However, should you have missed it, one of the best sources of laugh is "English as she is spoke": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_As_She_Is_Spoke Integral text: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node=Engli...he%20Is%20Spoke One of the best Chinglish pages seems like is not accessible anymore. Thanks to the Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.si...h/chinglish.htm (unfortunately some images appears like missing nonetheless) This one is my favourite: http://web.archive.org/web/20061024063158/...lish/ching7.htm jaclaz

Why not simply dsfo/dsfi? DSFOK toolkit: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/fr...ware/index.html Some (unneeded for you ) reference: to create the image, from drive n. to copy the image USB_thumb.img to drive n loop the above 39 times or script it in a batch.... Or if you want GUI, Roadkil's Disk Image: http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=12 jaclaz

It's unusual to find a spelling error on jaclaz's posts, hence I take pleasure in point it out. I have actually wanted to do the opposite for a flash drive - namely, I want to create two partitions on my 8 GB flash drive. However, I haven't found a utility that does just that. Can the hp utility do that? Vista's diskpart cannot accomplish that. I can create a 2 GB partition but the rest of the 6 GB goes to waste and I haven't been able to use the other space. It tells me it can't be done for this type of disk. Yep, like someone you might know , I renamed "usually" to "usaullay" (to have an 8 character adverb) Unless I have some other mispelling in the batch, you can use my mkimg/mbrbatch to do so (under 2K/XP, cannot say with Vista): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5000 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=5000&st=1 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=3191 but you'll have to do some homeworks, procedure is NOT automated for multi-partitioning. This might come handy for the calculations: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=2959 Then, Swissknife: http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm should work allright on USB devices, even those marked as removable (again on 2K/XP, cannot say Vista). You might however need to run bootsect.exe to have the "right" bootsector. jaclaz

...but unfortunately the only name we could come up with, was the name of a character of a reknown TV show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandler_Bing I sincerely wish that the new-born has less problems with the morality of his mother than the better known one used to have.... Subtitle: jaclaz

At least this time Microsoft is innocent. The problem is caused by Seagate and mainly by the very poor way they managed it. There are two good news : 1) the procedure to unbrick the thingy is relatively easy and all your data is there and can be recovered. 2) You are very lucky that Microsoft did NOT implement such a thing in Windows Update, running a firmware update from Windows on a live system is another name for "destroying hard drive or hard drive data" The procedures have been tested and re-tested by hundred or maybe thousands of users by now, and all of them managed to recover their data. jaclaz

For the record. ONLY diskpart of Vista/2008 (and 7) allows access to a USB drive set as "Removable" (typically a flash stick). The 2K/XP/2003 version do not. The HP USB tool will: delete any existing partition DATA in the MBR create a single partition spanning the entire size of the USB device create usaullay unbalanced CHS/LBA data @marsias The problem you are experiencing may be due to some incorrect previous partitioning. It is considered "illegal" to have more than one Extended partition. Or are you talking of two logical volumes inside a single Extended partition. What do you actually want to do? Simply deleting the partitions? It's strange that you have the same problem on a flash disk (which normally is seen as "Removable") and on a Hard Disk (which usually is set as "Fixed"). Disk Management should have NO problem whatsoever on "Fixed" devices, while it won't work, or won't work fully/properly on "Removable" ones. Easiest would be to delete the Partition table in the MBR. You can do that easily by euther: using beeblebrox and manually setting all entries to 0: http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/ use MBRFIX: http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm http://www.sysint.no/Download/tabid/162/la...US/Default.aspx Make SURE (and DOUBLE SURE) to select the correct \\.\Physicaldrive number. jaclaz

With all due respect, you are some 4 months late: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...8092&st=817 jaclaz

I see you are back. You did not learn yet to post in the proper section. Please read slowly the following sentence: this is: MSFN Forums > Unattended Windows Discussion & Support > Multi-Boot CD/DVDs You should post questions about USB Flash Disks with installs of XP/Vista in the appropriate place: MSFN Forums > Member Contributed Projects > Install XP from USB http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 You "abandoned" the already opened thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=127169&hl= everything in there is still valid, and it would be appreciated if the time spent in trying to help you would not be wasted by your abandoning the thread. jaclaz

Exactly. Of course anyone is free to do whatever he wants, I personally find the whole idea unfair. TommyP may have wrongly used the GPL, but his intention of making the app available for personal, non-commercial, usage only is quite clear. Thus, legally you would be more than justified, but morally you wouldn't. And of course the "legal" part is just BS, I don't think that any "amateur" (no offence intended ) programmer has the financial resources to actually enforce it. The limitation to non-commercial use is pretty much ineffective without a way to enforce it, and the only hope is the moral aspect of the thing, including, in some (usually very large corporations), internal ethical codes/audits. jaclaz

The easy, "poor man's" way? Create on a NTFS partition a sparse file bigger than the overall disk size, with mksparse or similar tool: http://branten.se/nt/ http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/ Use dsfi of the DSFOK package to copy the file over the physicaldrive: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/ Cannot say if dsfo/dsfi do work on 7, though. Another one to try for 7 compatibility is Roadkil's Disk Wipe: http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=14 If you are going, like DBAN would, to a "boot disk" of some kind, my suggestion is to use the "real thing", i.e. Secure Erase: http://cmrr.ucsd.edu/people/Hughes/SecureErase.shtml it is faster than anything else, as it uses the internal ATA/SATA commands (the work is done within the HD). It is also part of the UBCD, which also includes DBAN: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ jaclaz

Which one? This one is pretty clear: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=133387 http://www.mapleleafmountain.com/seagatebrick.html I don't think that a lousy video would help more. Sure there is. [sarcasm] We are actually a bunch of sadistic bastards that enjoy making things very difficult to newbies, when all you need to do is get a magic wand and tap three times on the dead hard disk while saying aloud "AbracadabrA": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abracadabra [/sarcasm] Only you can judge your knowledge and will to learn, evaluating the risks involved as opposed to estimating your financial capabilities and value the data has, and consider whether a data recovery firm could be a viable solution. Or if you have some friend/roommate/pal with a knack for electronics/PC's to whom you may ask to help you. jaclaz

Read here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=128807 A translation of original guide in Italian: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129366&hl= (but DON'T trust it too much), use the one below: A more complete, and detailed guide: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=133387 jaclaz

Well, you can pay me for support allright! And here is the Guide (for dummies and not-so-dummies): http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm You may want to look at Terabyte Unlimited (please note, this is NOT an advertisement): http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm BootIt NG: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootit-next-generation.htm should have similar features. Another (absolutely needlessly complex one ) could be to somehow automate during the install or soon after it an editing of the \boot\BCD on the stick to add an entry for the actual installation on hard disk and set it default. This way you won't have problems if you forget the stick during a reboot after the install. but you'll have to remember when you insert the stick on another machine, that your current default is linked to another install on another machine and correct the \boot\BCD entry by removing the previously added entry and re-set as default the install on the stick. jaclaz

Am I allowed to be sarcastic? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066026/quotes jaclaz

Dechy, why don't you use, like all the rest of the world, grub4dos? Check the "Install XP from USB" section (and yes, you can use the apps in there to install Vista and Windows 7 too): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 If you just want to skip the USB stick, have in menu.lst something like: Alternatively to hardcoding a disk/partition, you can use a "tag" file, a file which is present on the hard disk but that is not on the USB stick: find --set-root /tag_file.ext chainloader /bootmgr jaclaz

If you need BartPE just to run Disk Director, why don't you simply use Disk Director? It is one of the. iso images directly mappable with grub4dos: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=66 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5041 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=5041&st=3 jaclaz