jaclaz

It seems like a similar thingy for the Win9x/Me family is VERY diffcult to find. I was able to find a few, but all for the NT/2K/XP family. BUT B) : Here are a couple for "pure DOS": http://cd.textfiles.com/maxx/tothemaxsw/DISK/FILES.BBS DRVELD10.ZIP On-screen drive LED http://cd.textfiles.com/maxx/tothemaxsw/DISK/ http://cd.textfiles.com/maxx/tothemaxsw/DISK/DRVELD10.ZIP http://cd.textfiles.com/drsharewaregold/utility1/files.bbs KDL.ZIP TSR BLINKS NUMLOCK LIGHT AT DISK ACCESS http://cd.textfiles.com/drsharewaregold/utility1/ http://cd.textfiles.com/drsharewaregold/utility1/kdl.zip And here is a Win95 one , cannot say whether it would work on 98/Me : http://cd.textfiles.com/mediadepot/MENU/DIRLISTS/DIR41. hdled.zip 545758 13-09-96 Hard Disk LED simulates a hard disk light | that flashes every time there's a disk | activity. Hard Disk LED appears on the | Windows 95 task bar and flashes every time | the system accesses physical, direct access | devices (ie. your hard drives). http://cd.textfiles.com/mediadepot/FILES/41/?N=D http://cd.textfiles.com/mediadepot/FILES/41/HDLED.ZIP Unfortunately Shareware, will disactivate after 30 minutes.... A more recent version is here : http://hdled.home.comcast.net/~hdled/ reported as working for both 98 and Me, but the e-mail at attbi.com should mean that the thingy is "on it's own". jaclaz

From an authorized Microsoft site or dealer, or just a torrent or whatever WAREZ site? The distinction is not so subtle, please review Rules: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18408 before providing an answer..... jaclaz

A couple of notes related to "added" D paragraph : Please note that FDISK /MBR only replaces the MBR CODE (with the "default" Win9x one). It does NOTHING if the Virus or whatever has corrupted the MBR DATA. It is always a good idea to have (possibly on the same "emergency floppy" a backup of the complete MBR. If you don't have it, your only way out (possibly) is the use of TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk to re-build the MBR DATA It is unclear/undocumented if there is any advantage (or drawback) on a dual boot system to have the Win9x MBR CODE or the 2K/XP/2003 one. Not really. :whistling: If you already have an entry for BOOTSECT.W98 in your BOOT.INI you can simply run: BOOTPART WIN98 C:\BOOTSECT.W98 a new bootsector will be created, but NO entry will be added to BOOT.INI. Of course you need to use the SAME "BOOTSECT.W98" name for the "old" and the "new" bootsector. jaclaz

Should be this one: http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/sizeGB315-c.html Or is it this one : http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/sizeGB30-c.html jaclaz

OK, I completely missed the point, let's see if I have understood it now. You don't want to install the XP on the USB drive. You want to use the USB enclosure attached to your "main" PC to transfer the XP install files on a HD that you will later put inside the "other" laptop, right? This line: G:\I386\winnt32.exe /syspart:F: /tempdrive:F: /makelocalsource /noreboot should work allright from 2K or XP, and unless the HD controller in the laptop is "non-standard" or SATA, you shouldn't have problems when installing. It is possible that WINNT32.EXE does not "like" the USB bus to which the target drive is attached, though. If you can try on another PC running XP it would be better and easier, otherwise you may want to try building a small PE (using the same XP source files) or use the good ol' DOS way with WINNT.EXE. You can take some ideas from the Install XP from USB Sub-Forum: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showforum=157 or from this oldish thread: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16713 AFAIK there isn't a complete "specific" guide to alternate ways to the use of /syspart /makelocalsource switches in WINNT32.EXE. jaclaz

I cannot see where it is reported the filesystem used by Zoinkity on his C:\ drive. Apart from the above and maybe other problems, the point is that BOOT.INI (or if you prefer NTLDR) does not "traverse" drives. is, as seen by NTLDR, "a suffusion of yellow" : http://www.thateden.co.uk/dirk/ Provided that the created bootsector is "correct", it MUST reside on C:\ As well the IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM , as well as AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS MUST reside on C:\ (read on First Primary Active partition). These latter are NOT negotiable, it's the way DOS boots. (for the sake of simplicity, I am lying , COMMAND.COM can also be somewhere else if it's position is specified in config.sys) As hinted before, the use of chainloading bootsectors through BOOT.INI is the "old" way to do it, nowadays it is advised to chainload grub4dos' grldr from BOOT.INI and from it chainload directly the kernel file (IO.SYS) bypassing the bootsector alltogether, and offering a wide number of alternate methods to boot, including int his particular case, and IF the C:\ partition is NTFS, booting from a floppy image and then continue booting from D:\ ) Forum: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=66 Guide: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5187 http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm Method #5: http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/...ll.htm#method05 jaclaz

Sure ther is a reason, point is finding which is it. Compare your setup and your settings with those in the mentiuonsed thread: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4952 and krokodox's tutorials, see if you can spot any difference: http://krokodox.winbuilder.net/Documents.html jaclaz

Sorry if it didn't help. jaclaz

Well, you can still use a Repair: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm make sure source Xp install CD has been slipstreamed to the same SP level. Just for the record, we have found in another thread that a reason of this may also be entries in partition table "moved" from their "natural" order, i.e. first partition (first in LBA address) must be in first entry, second in secnd and so on. jaclaz

Here: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowshutdown.htm http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/shtdwnxp.htm jaclaz

Happy to hear a story of success. jaclaz

Other thread started here: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=131041 You seem like having two problems. First one, much bigger than the one you think you have is that XP by design is not meant to boot from an external USB device. Second one is something in your Vista, which can easily be solved by simply using the Xp on the "other" laptop that you can borrow. (it is simply not worth the time to troubleshoot this problem since, even if it worked, it WON'T produce a bootable from USB XP) There is an automated way to install XP on a USB device, here (suggested): http://www.usboot.org/tiki-index.php besides a number of tutorials/manual ways Read this thread (AND links therein): http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=119963 there is more or less the full experience, problems and solutions of another user installing XP on an external USB device while running Vista. jaclaz

I would avoid double posting, if I were you. http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18408 Also, presuming that a forum is dead because noone else answered your post in a 4+6 hours is a bit pessimistic.... See the other thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=131021&hl= jaclaz

Yep, why not? Though I cannot see how using USB_Multiboot_10 you got in this straqnge situation, did you change ANYTHING in menu.lst? Let's start from "basics". Boot to grub4dos. Press "c" to access command line (or do nothing if it cannot find menu.lst you will already be in command line. Type: root [ENTER] <post result>, it should be (hd0,0) or (hd1,0) Type: configfile [TAB] you should see the files on the root of your USB drive, including menu.lst. If yes: press m [TAB] and continue adding letters of menu.lst and pressing [TAB] until you have the complete name of menu.lst on command line, then press [ENTER] What happens? If NO, try chaniging root, i.e. if output of previour root command was (hd0,0), type: root (hd1,0) [ENTER] and repeat above steps.... or viceversa if output of previous root was (hd1,0) do a root (hd0,0) jaclaz

There is NO such thing as a file that can link the menu.lst to grub. First thing it is grub4dos, NOT grub. grldr contains as the last bytes the "internal" entries that search for menu.lst: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6775 Have you got multiple menu.lst's? However you can use command line in grub4dos to search for the menu.lst (or for another "configfile"): http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/Grub4dos.htm http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/cli.htm jaclaz

did I link to perfect disk? What I normally use is ultradefrag: http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/ jaclaz

Simple math? You can use this small spreadsheet, though it was intended for another use, it can serve your purpose: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=2959 (hint: offset should be the value "sectors before") or are you asking about which values are appropriate to better performance? I know nothing of this latter aspect, unless you are referring to this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929491/en-us If the document is not proprietary/reserved, can I have a look at it? jaclaz

Nice. I am not sure to have understood if you are using somehow the "short names" or "~1" can be "anything". Can you post a "dirtectory tree" of your setup, so that it is clearer? jaclaz

The point is, WHY you want to use an image/cloning tool+a defragging one. You make a new sparse file, of appropriate size (when expanded). You mount it as a Virtual disk. Or you make a new partition of given size. Then you use file copying/backup utilities (driven by a script or batch) to copy the files in a given order to/from the image/other partition. When files are written (for the first time and on a newly formatted filesystem) they are contiguous. That's the old way we used (poor man's or poor Admin's if you prefer ) with NT4, which did not came with a Defrag utility. On NTFS you will need something like robocopy or xxcopy or strarc: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html capable of keeping NTFS info and metadata. jaclaz

Really? http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...8603&st=499 Links are not more valid, but we still have the Wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20071110031012/...1999110241.html http://web.archive.org/web/20071107064829/...1999110255.html This is however not-so-hidden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskeeper The Vista defrag is said to be a a new thingie developed internally by the Vista team. Pagefile defrag is "MS" because they bought Sysinternals, and all tolls made by Mark Russinovich. jaclaz

No prob. Sure it is. To boot from a drive, it must be made bootable. But this thread is related to a program that makes the drive bootable, and the OP clearly stated that he can successfully boot. For the record the drive must be partitioned and formatted and first partition must be made active, which is exactly one among the things USB_multiboot_10 does. If you need to ask, it simply means that you haven't (yet ) mastered this particular topic, thus you should refrain from posting unrelated/irrelevant info or however anything that you are not sure about, as it may confuse the member who originally asked for help. More generally, while every help/suggestion/ideas are always welcome, it should be given as much as possible as a direct answer to the OP question. Try looking at the question: and to your suggestion: Does it make sense to you? To me it sounds a bit like: Q:Which paint should I use for my walls? A:First thing you need some walls. You need to drive some piles in the ground and build the foundations before starting building the walls. jaclaz

Yep, I really like the idea of the ASCII art. Simple and effective. It is assumed that you already tried the DOS-LOGO.SYS: http://logosys.logotypes.se/ and for any reason it did not work for you/you didn't like it, right? For the record, DOS-LOGO.SYS is a device driver that "reloads" the graphical logo from config.sys, thus "hiding" the text that would be otherwise seen on screen. jaclaz

WINNER: http://ping.windowsdream.com/winner.html Most questions/problems/solutions about PXE installing Windows can be found on the TFTP32 Forum here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=58 jaclaz

What about EKKO.COM? http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~af380/Tips.html#Tip011 This way you can have a coloured ASCII Art logo.... jaclaz

I may be wrong, but I seem to remember that original WIN9x files had files in the ROOT, not in a \WIN95\ directory.... jaclaz