jaclaz

From what you report, it seems like one of the two motherboards use CHS and the other one LBA to access the partition table. If the Usb stick has been partitioned with the HP USB utility, it is possible that CHS and LBA data is "unbalanced". It is also possible that one of the two PC's "fall" in one of the "strange" categories of FAQ #10: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...SB/USBfaqs.html See here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5924 http://www.msfn.org/board/Windows-XP-Repai...ion-t124165.htm Post both the MBR and bootsector that is giving you the problem, I'll have a look at it. Or get Beeblebrox or PTEDIT32 or similar utilities and check the values in partition table against those calculated with this spreadsheet: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=2959 jaclaz

If you build out of your original XP CD, unless you used nlite too aggressively, removing thing you should have not, it will work. You mentioned downloading "XP Performance Edition", which is a known WAREZ release. jaclaz

Just for the record, the above Vista HOWTO originally comes from this blog: http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!...!1665.entry jaclaz

Both files are not MBR's they are bootsectors. Something has clearly failed to work. There must be something that we overlooked. Can you try the MKIMG/MBRBATCH ?: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5000 And post the MBR of the resulting image/stick? jaclaz

Sure, and you expect to get help and support for a WAREZ release? Check Rules: http://www.msfn.org/board/Forum-Rules-Updated-Re-t18408.html I guess both you and the "the person who made this slimmed version" have failed to read the FAQ's, that version has probably "Operating System Options-->Manual Install and Upgrade for removal" REMOVED. jaclaz

Well, the link you provided: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documen...product=3795407 has this: jaclaz

Both the supposedly and the untouched makes me think that there are large probabilities that it is a "touched" version. Can you set in the BIOS (temporarily) the SATA disk to IDE (compatibility) mode? jaclaz

With all due respect, I don't think that a black 640x480 rectangle can be of any interest , we would have trusted your word for it as well. jaclaz

bootfix.bin missing? http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=19987 a non-original no-emulation bootsector used? jaclaz

http://www.scitechsoft.com/sdd_win.html http://www.scitechsoft.com/ftp/sdd/ jaclaz

Yes, you are right, but it may help in "limiting" the range, like a pre-check. Take it as a "heuristic" approach, , drive letters that won't be found in the Registry were never been assigned. jaclaz

A useful hijackthis "side" service is this site: http://www.hijackthis.de/ where you have an easy to visualize analisys of your log. From it it does not seem that you have much problems. the "questionable items" are below (as coming from "short analisys"): [?] - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\USRmlnkA.exe [?] - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\USRmlnkA.exe [?] - O3 - Toolbar: olnmraew - {C6E98D75-91EE-4EB1-9CE2-047046F30E32} - C:\WINDOWS\olnmraew.dll [?] - O8 - Extra context menu item: Show All Original Images - res://C:\Program Files\SlipStream Web Accelerator\gui_resource.dll/327 [?] - O8 - Extra context menu item: Show Original Image - res://C:\Program Files\SlipStream Web Accelerator\gui_resource.dll/328 [?] - O17 - HKLM\System\CCS\Services\Tcpip\..\{2C6EAB0D-1A58-41BD-8453-EAB8BAC53A7A}: NameServer = 64.136.173.5 64.136.164.77 [?] - O21 - SSODL: lfstbwvd - {39F839B6-596C-41B7-A906-834AE131C502} - C:\WINDOWS\lfstbwvd.dll Of course only you may know how accurate is the above and what in it may actually be a problem. jaclaz

I personally vote for allowing you to bold your name too.... ....though of course, it costs me some effort to say so, but remember (with BORG voice): Two years have just passed since this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=18657&st=8 Why don't you try a test drive with the newish 0.4.4-pre: http://nufans.net/grub4dos/ Latest: http://nufans.net/grub4dos/grub4dos-0.4.4-2008-10-12.zip Will probably be released as "official" 0.4.4 in a few days , but no gfx enabled images yet. jaclaz

You are welcome. I changed the board tags from CODE to CODEBOX as to make the thread more readable. At first sight you still have a number of temporary text files: I'll see, as soon as I have some spare time, if I can find some ways to remove (or minimize) the need for temp files. jaclaz P.S.: Maybe this approach may work? Just an example, first "separate" Removable drives from Fixed .....: @ECHO OFF SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS SETLOCAL ENABLEDELAYEDEXPANSION FOR %%A IN ( A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V Z) DO ( FOR /F "tokens=1,2,3,4 delims= " %%B IN ('REG QUERY HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices\ /V \DosDevices\%%A: 2^>^&1^|FIND "REG_BINARY"') DO ( REM ECHO %%A %%B %%C %%D CALL :Drivetype %%A %%D ) ) SET First8 SET FIXED SET REMOVABLE PAUSE GOTO :EOF :Drivetype SET DRIVE_%1=%2 CALL SET First8_%1=!DRIVE_%1:~0,8! IF !First8_%1!.==5C003F00. (SET REMOVABLE=%REMOVABLE%%1:,) ELSE (SET FIXED=%FIXED%%1:,) GOTO :EOF

As long as you have two installations on two separate partitions and you want each one to "see" each other, you need NO third party bootmanager. Read here: http://www.multibooters.co.uk/ almost any possible scanario is covered There are NO "best" tools to do anything, there are tools that work, and tools that do not, tools that are freeware and tools that are commercial, each has it's own plus and minus, often it is just a matter of personal preferences or traditional familiarity with one app or the other. Gparted is a good Freeware app, Acronis is a good commercial one, there are others. Be VERY aware of this: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/features.php the above applies to ANY tool. jaclaz

Sure, I got that. What I was wondering was how, once you reenable WFP, it behaves for files that you deleted (if they are within the list inside SFCFILES.DLL) . jaclaz

What is the BSOD STOP ERROR? Not by any chance 0x0000007b? jaclaz

Really I cannot say, I usually disable SFC/WFP and let it be disabled. But really it doesn't apply as I run Win2k. I wonder how it can work though. I mean, normally the SFC_OS.DLL checks the files listed in SFCFILES.DLL. If you hexedit adequately SFC_OS.DLL, it checks NOT the files in SFCFILES.DLL If you have an empty SFCFILES.DLL, the SFC_OS.DLL check the files listed in it i.e. zero files. The referenced post by fdv explains the above better: http://www.msfn.org/board/HFSLIP-Test-rele...279#entry492279 Now, if you re-enable the SFC_OS.DLL with an unmodified list of files (original SFCFILES.DLL), it will start re-checking the listed files, and if any has been modified or is missing it will pop-up asking you to insert the CD. jaclaz

I think that nlite uses the "empty" .dll trick, originally developed by Damian Bakowski and bettered by Fred De Vorck: http://www.vorck.com/windows/about.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Nlited-XP-post-i...3.html&st=6 http://www.msfn.org/board/enable-file-protection-t71256.html jaclaz

This might not be of ANY use for you, but since I stumbled upon it by chance, I am posting it so that it may be of use to aome other members with similar (but not SAME) problem: http://users.telenet.be/jbosman/poweroff/poweroff.htm jaclaz

Other than replacing a file completely (which is not desireable for boot.ini), I am uncertain about methods to edit a text file other than via a GUI.How can it be done via CMD file? Here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Hand-BOOTINI-t66101.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Hand-BOOTINI-t66101.html&st=15 NIRCMD is great, but remember: "jaclaz

Yep , that's why I stated it to be a bit off topic. However, in my experience both the Hitachi cfadisk.sys and Anton Bassov's dummydisk.sys filter drivers worked flawlessly under 2K and XP. There is also a Freeware app that can access (and thus partition/format) Removable devices under 2K/XP, Swissknife: http://www.compuapps.com/download/Swissknife/swissknife.htm Also, to identify a controller, you may want to use Chipgenius, that usually finds more info than other utilities: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4661 (cannot say how useful this can be with SD cards and the like or if it will even run on Win98) In the same thread there are links to other similar utilities. jaclaz

Maybe you've got a wrong version. Try asking for help in the referenced thread Fernando 1 is a real expert on the matter, and has solved a number of problematic cases. jaclaz

This works in 98 only: http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/mid/ MacOSx has something: http://www.dualosx.com/dualosx_en.htm and Linux has MPX: http://wearables.unisa.edu.au/mpx/ so NT based systems appear the only ones where it doesn't work? Would the things referenced here: http://weblogs.asp.net/cfranklin/archive/2...2/21/77787.aspx (courtesy of the Wayback Machine): http://web.archive.org/web/20060219114740/...rcade/rawmouse/ be of use? jaclaz

Actually it will take care of everything: 1) writing a new bootsector (either to file or booted partition) 2) adding corresponding entry to BOOT.INI if needed Make sure to read and understand the syntax. jaclaz P.S.: you can check posts on it's forum, here: http://forum.winimage.com/viewforum.php?f=1 in case of doubts, or ask for help there. Guess who will probably reply?