jaclaz

Sure, and I answered: And hinted, since the time you stated seems a bit excessive, that you may be using a "slow" app and that you should try another one: jaclaz

How much are you gonna bet? No, thanks, I don't like easy money. FYI: http://web.archive.org/web/20040107022513/...e.com/xdos.html Or you actually did it BEFORE July 14, 2002 and are telling about it after 7 years? B) jaclaz

Data retrieving can take a long time. You shouldn't tamper with the disk if you don't know what you are doing. Usually it is possible to recover a filesystem if the problem is only in MBR/bootsector/FAT tables/MFT, etc. using testdisk: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk Otherwise try this: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec (much faster than what you describe, if targeted to just a filetype, like .jpg) Not necessarily..... FYI: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=133933&hl= ...before giving up, one should always try a recovery, the result can be positive. jaclaz

You are not the only one. FYI: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=10623 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=12326 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=53 jaclaz

Boy, do I hate the use of the "any": each .iso and each OS has it's own story. Read here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...c=6896&st=4 And here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5041 (post #4 is for Acronis) jaclaz

"U3" sticks get two drive letters, I guess they have two partitions ? I also saw that for "fingerprint secured" sticks. One partition for the security system, one for data. NO. They have two LUN's: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20186&st=16 http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...20186&st=27 (of which one is a CD-ROM device and the other one is a "normal disk", which may be partitioned, but usually isn't) Also, FYI: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=121502 http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=125138 BTW, the bootsector of ngpc's stick was formatted as FAT16 06 (CHS) and had a bootsector invoking DOS system file IO.SYS. I have NEVER seen myself or read ANY report of such a stick being formatted like that in factory. The unbalanced CHS/LBA makes me think of the use of the "HP" formatting utility and the n/64/32 of the use of VDK (which defaults to that geometry) or Winimage, that can use that geometry in some cases. jaclaz

You are welcome. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you... Seriously: any hex/disk editor, possibly one that offers templates Beeblebrox, the DSFOK toolkit, IMDISK which you already "met". Ken Kato's VDK: http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp/vmware/vdk.html#top Optionally with my pseudo GUI for it: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...ts/VDM/vdm.html My small CHS/LBA spreadsheet: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2959 (keep an eye on that thread, I am in the process, hopefully in a few days or maybe weeks, to publish a MUCH enhandced v2.0 of it) My small MBRBATCH/MKIMG: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=3191 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5000 And a number of other tools, depending on what is the problem at hand. Remember that however usually a skilled carpenter is more important than the actual tools he uses. You'll need some time to learn and digest the info you can find in the below mentioned site (and it's links) and more generally take your time browsing around in boot-land: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/ Also remember that the right approach to data recovery is avoiding needing it. (BACKUP!) The "mother of all MBR/filesystems sites", the Starman's Realm: http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/index.html And of course the good ol' "Primer": http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm I would also suggest you getting acquaintaned to "ol' DOS" programs, like Ranish Partition Manager: http://www.ranish.com/part/ and the several other DOS tools recommended by Daniel B. Sedory (the Starman) And with Qemu: http://www.nongnu.org/qemu/ Optionally using Qemu Manager GUI: http://www.davereyn.co.uk/ You can apply a similar method/approach. Not a "similar value", a value can be either of two things: Right Wrong (no space for "similar") Sure, that's the "proper" approach, NEVER write anything on the "problematic" device if you are not sure (and double sure) about what you are writing and what effects it may have. jaclaz

Something like UBCD or UBCD? UBCD has been in latest releases modified as to allow use of both Isolinux/Syslinux and grub4dos. However the steps are more or less the same. See here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6119 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7312 For a "generic" DOS based floppy image, start from here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=3963 jaclaz

starcraftmaster, go here: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/ There is everything you will ever need about Windows Networking. Start from these: http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_...Windows_9598ME/ http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_...s/mspc2pct.html jaclaz

FYI (loosely related to rloew's report): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=2343 jaclaz

@ilko_t Out of topic, but not much I find this thingy here very useful: http://grub4dostoolbox.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dostoolbox/ It says it uses bootlace.com (under 2K and XP it appears to be working allright) maybe it is now possible to use directly bootlace.com fron NT based systems? jaclaz

eidenk, Let's try this way. Since the beginning of any dos, COMMAND.COM has been a command interpreter, that you can easily change / substitute. In the old (up to MS-DOS 6.22) the DOS system files were TWO: IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS Corresponding to the two files of the original PC-DOS: IBMBIO.SYS IBMDOS .SYS Since DOS 7.x the MSDOS.SYS has been "deprived" of the dignity of system file and demoted to a mere "INI settings file". Everything was embedded in IO.SYS, even the boot splashscreen. Just for the record remember how: IO.SYS<-->WIMBOOT.SYS http://rshweb.com/Win95/win95tips9.htm In DOS 8.0 even himem.sys has been embedded in IO.SYS. So, it is correct to say that: IO.SYS is DOS, since version 7.x or Win95. jaclaz

Basically 2K/XP/2003 check if a flag in the controller of the USB device is set as either "Fixed" or "Removable". If it detects it as "Removable" it won't: allow partitioning the device allow access to any partition but the first (Active) one (if the device is actually partitioned) BUT, if it finds a MBR, it will "trust" information in it and allow to format the single partition it can access. 99.99% (read ALL) USB sticks have this flag in the controller set as "Removable" ALL USB Hard Disks and USB Hard Disks enclosures have this flag in the controller set as "Fixed" 99.99% (read ALL, exception made for your stick ) are sold WITHOUT partitioning, with the whole stick formatted as "super-floppy" If you Format from XP a stick that HAS NOT a valid MBR, it will be formatted as "super-floppy". The given utilities allow partitioning and formatting the stick as a HD-like device. An alternative is using in Windows XP a "Filter Driver" such as cfadisk.sys or dummydisk.sys that "tricks" XP in seeing the flag in the controller set as "Fixed" and thus allow Disk Management to partition the disk. So, if you try re-formatting your stick as-is from Windows XP, it will assume the (currently containing "wrong" data) MBR to be a valid one and will re-create a "non-right" filesystem, which may nonetheless work, as it did yours, but that it is NOT advised as it may create problems on some machines, or with other OS. If you try re-formatting your stick after having wiped it from Windows XP, it will assume that you want to create a "super-floppy" filesystem, which again works allright for the use you make it, but hat may be more problematic to recover in case of failure. There is no "needed" technical reason, it as an "advised" technical one. Which you saw in the testdisk List view being RED: to evidentiate how they were DELETED files. When you delete a file on a FAT filesystem it is NOT actually deleted, simply first character of it's name in the FAT table is overwritten by a "special" character (that testdisk shows as an underscore) to signify that that allocation is free and that it can be overwritten. Yep, from the date/time of those files, you can track when the Virus wrote them, each _UTORUN.INF file you can see (and that you should delete once finished playing with them) is a single attempt of infection (or re-infection) by the Virus. jaclaz

Start from the beginning. Try this tutorial: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=133387 which is clear and complete. Using an adapter (USB converter) to connect the drive to a PC is, generally speaking, not a good idea, you add a layer of variables. But the whole point is another. You do not need to flash the new firmware immediately. You should be able to de-brick and access the drive normally (with the "old" firmware) and you should have anyway a fair number of re-boots before it bricks again, see from here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...092&st=1044 up to post #1063 Which is the situation of your hard disk now? How is it detected/failed to be detected properly? jaclaz

With all due respect , you seem to be missing some needed knowledge. NO. Windows is "locked" to 26 drive letters, not to 26 partitions. That's what mountpoints are for. But there is not one reason in the world to "need" more than a few partitions, let alone 26 of them. You don't want to jam grub. You may want to "jam" grub4dos. And it takes just a few hundreds of Kbytes in the worst case. Yes, it is, though the path you set before you is the longest and most troublesome you could devise. As-is this can install up to 9 XP's/2003's: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=111406 modifying it for more shouldn't be difficult at all, the lmit is due to the number of available entries in BOOT.INI, you can use several NTLDRs with a simple hex-edit to use BOOT.IN0, BOOT.IN1, BOOT.IN2, etc. nd thus have as many as you want. As well adding several Vista's and 2008's or Windows 7's is not a problem. But most probably the easiest would be to boot to a PE and then install "normally" from it, see this: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=121446 Take your time reading the given links, then post in the apppropriate Forum: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 Your doubts/questions. jaclaz

Since you have an ICH8M, I would try: "a ) For Intel ICH7R/M, ICH8R/M, ICH9R/M or ICH10R/D S-ATA AHCI and RAID Controllers:" But this should be not connected with the problem you reported. Let's continue on the new thread, OK? jaclaz

Thank you for the unexpected promotion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir I guess that at the most , you can refer to me as: jaclaz, Esq. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esquire But Mr. jaclaz, or better, just jaclaz, would be more than appropriate. You should try to describe better what happens. "FAIL" is not enough to understand what problem it could be. Can you post the contents of your menu.lst ? The BOOT.INI you posted is the one on the flash stick, right? jaclaz

AFAIK "nunya" runs better on FAT32 than on NTFS. And while we are at it, of course Mickey Mouse outclasses Dracula, and there is simply no race between Godzilla and King Kong. jaclaz

Still, you didn't reply/comment on the other thread : http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...131969&st=5 Are you somehow connected to the site/company? Can you share some info on the program? jaclaz

This should be the relevant part: You may want to leave alone for the moment the drivers pack and use this method: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=107504&hl= to integrate your ICH8 drivers to your source. In any case, start form scratch, i.e. re-format the stick and re-run fully WinsetupfromUSB. jaclaz

It seems to me like the right place/time to let drop casually a link : http://toastytech.com/evil/index.html ....and see what happens.... B) jaclaz

Are you double clicking on it? OSCDIMG is a command line app. http://commandwindows.com/ Open a command console. Navigate to the directory where OSCDIMG is: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490875.aspx Type OSCDIMG /? and press the [ENTER] key. jaclaz

Happy to hear about a happy ending. Virii "for USB sticks" are generally triggered by the stupid (I know no better English word to describe it ) feature of Windows XP (and later I think ) that tries to access "automagically" anything connected to the USB port and tries to Print, or Play or Open or whatever. The culprit is the autorun.inf file, which is executed by the above mentioned stupid feature. An Image file is not accessed the same way, so it is relatively safe. Scan files in the image and your anti-virus should get rid of the things allright. Since Windows cannot read properly your damaged stick, it shouldn't be a problem of reinfection. Thus answer to all your questions is NO. What you should do next would be to WIPE your stick (as opposed to re-formatting it) Get mksparse: http://www.acc.umu.se/~bosse/ unzip it in the usual directory C:\DSFOK (I presume that the C:\ volume has a NTFS filesystem, otherwise use a NTFS one) Create a new sparse file the size you got from dsfo originally: mksparse C:\dsfok\USB_empty.img 1035206656 The file, being sparse will occupy only a bunch of Kbytes instead of it's full size, and it will be full to the brim of 00's. If the temporary occupation of about 1 Gb by the file is not a problem, you can use fsz that is already in the DSFOK you have. Now, use dsfi to completely overwrite your stick: dsfi \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1 0 0 C:\dsfok\USB_empty.img Remove and re-insert stick. Now, use RMPREPUSB.EXE (advised): http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=7739 to format your stick. (this will create a "properly formatted" stick including a MBR, i.e. HD-like, if you use XP Disk Management it will format the stick as super-floppy, unless you use a filter driver, that I guess it's out of the scope of this thread) Using the re-known "HP utility" will work as well, though it will create "better-than-the-current-lousy-one" , but still unbalanced CHS/LBA partition table, which is more likely to cause problems in the future. Remove and re-insert stick. Then, get ninja pendisk : http://nunobrito.eu/ninja/ http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4350 http://nunobrito.eu/ninja/forum/ and use it. BTW, and just as a general advice for the future, a not-so-well-known "trick" on FAT16 and FAT32 filesystems, in order to increase the possibilities of recovering files is to avoid if possible to put files in the ROOT, but rather use Directories or sub-directories to store them. jaclaz

Just for the record, you can use a USB stick with the Parted Magic ISO. See here: http://partedmagic.com/documentation/124-g...so-booting.html jaclaz

Yep. You did not make properly the [Geometry] change. Re-check settings in the [Geometry] section: Cylinders=1 Heads=64 Sectors=32 Sector Size=512 and you will get the 987/18/25. jaclaz