jaclaz

If you are booting a "real" XP on USB, the NTLDR must be a "real" NTLDR, NOT a renamed SETUPLDR.BIN! Solution: replace the NTLDR in the stick ROOT with a "real" NTLDR. jaclaz

I don't think I scared anyone I do trust you on your word, but you see, you are at your first post here (BTW Welcome ) and provide a link to an app, without any details about it. The "general" points I was trying to make was: 1) Since there are no instructions in the Download, it is ALWAYS a good thing to read them before using it 2) Whenever referencing to an app, it is a better practice to refer also to the Author website (if any), to the Release Thread (if any) or however to something where the user can read about the app and what it does, rather then a direct download link 3) It is UNDENIABLE that one of the .ISO inside the download contains an encrypted VB script that could do ANYTHING The "specific" point, aimed to bledd's reply, is that newish U3 sticks have NOT ANYMORE the same structure as early ones, and thus the linked program may provide to be useless. To use it one needs to "downgrade" to an older version of LP_installer. As well, noone should be scared about it, but the user can save some time and headaches actually knowing what he is doing before doing it, as opposed as troubleshooting problems (if any) after they have presented themselves. ..and of course, you've probably never seen me actually scaring someone , you'd be too scared to ever think about criticising my posts again.... jaclaz

And maybe, before using it, it would be better if you read the instructions in the Release Post: http://www.u3community.com/viewtopic.php?t=434 Including the Warnings. AND this thread: http://u3community.com/viewtopic.php?t=1800 jaclaz

Maybe (though I cannot see why )) this is related: http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=86031 As said, a good test would be to physically diconnect internal hard disk, but if it is a problem, you can also experiment by simply disabling it in BIOS, if booting works, it is something on the hard disk preventing it, if it still does not, it is something on the stick or in the BIOS settings. jaclaz

Just for the record, don't forget WindowsGate: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21204 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4070 jaclaz

After this the computer reboots. So now I need help with editing the config file, can you possibly help me with this? : Sure, if you tell me what you are trying to boot. Basically you should have in ROOT of your stick (some files may be hidden): IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS COMMAND.COM CONFIG.SYS LOGO.SYS \grub4dos\grub.exe NTDETECT.COM NTLDR (this should be a SETUPLDR.BIN renamed) wimbom.ini \minint (if you are booting a XP/2003 based PE this directory contains the files) The booting procedure, "as is" is the following: 1) MBR chainloads bootsector 2) bootsector chainloads DOS system files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM) 3) since a LOGO.SYS file is present, INSTEAD of the "usual" Windows 98 bootscreen that bitmap is displayed 4) CONFIG.SYS is parsed and executed 5) the following grub4dos menu.lst (that is written in CONFIG.SYS) is executed: timeout 0 default 0 title Booting BartPE find --set-root /ntldr chainloader /ntldr The easiest would be to: 1) Move grub.exe to ROOT of the stick 2) change CONFIG.SYS from: device=\grub4dos\grub.exe --config-file="timeout 0;default 0;title Booting BartPE;find --set-root /ntldr;chainloader /ntldr" to: device=grub.exe --config-file=menu.lst 3) Add to ROOT of the stick a "conventional" menu.lst: timeout 30 default 0 title Booting BartPE find --set-root /ntldr chainloader /ntldr title Another way to boot BartPE find --set-root /minint/SETUPLDR.BIN chanloader /minint/SETUPLDR.BIN (of course adding the proper entry for whatever you want to boot or experimenting with command line) Do take a bit of time reading diddy's grub4dos guide: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=5187 so that you get familiar with basic grub4dos commands and menu entries. Once the above works, one can try installing to the stick the grldr.mbr, that has been reported by ktp as working allright on biggish FAT32 volumes, thus bypassing the loading of DOS. jaclaz

The experiment with the laptop confirms my initial theory of an UNKNOWN reason, coincidentally happening at the same time of the Filter Driver install. From my experience, Acronis products (but I have tested/used only rather oldish releases, like 7 or 8), whilst actually making some undocumented/non-standard modifications to hard disk hidden sectors, never made non-standard partitions. Having 65 (instead of 63) hidden sectors is really WEIRD. As well, diskpart, on tens of sticks partitioned/formatted with it that I have examined, NEVER made a non-63 hidden sectors partitioning, the data on your stick suggests that diskpart either failed to sense correctly the stick, or it is some particular stick, like an "U3" or a "CDRW" one. However, BOTH the above points, though queer do not account for the problems you reported. Also, whatever drivers, apps and "whatnot" inside your "resident" OS have NOT ANY (or should not have any) influence on the booting of ANOTHER OS from external media, the exception being if some Registry entries (not strictly related to drivers) are read in an attempt to "discover" existing hardware. Before starting fiddling with the Registry, other tests should be made. At this point, the only not completely senseless explication is some kind of hardware problem. Since VistaCE is nothing but a (rather well ) enhanced setup routine, there have been reports of problems booting it when some problems are present on the hardware, typically: a. defective RAM b. bad sectors on the HD Tests that you can make with relatively low effort: 1. run Memtest+ to check thoroughly your RAM 2. try booting from the stick after having physically disconnected the internal hard disk. Experiment 2. would anyway exclude that the Registry of the installed OS has anything to do with the reported misbehaviour. jaclaz

Up to Windows 95, if I remember correctly there was the floppy disk version. But basically, (with LOTS of patience) you can install any later OS, using a local install directory and an awful number of floppy writing/copying/swapping. Which processor and how mch RAM has the laptop? jaclaz

Sure, that is the same reason why I am trying to help you, I couldn't care less about your VistaPE stick not working , I am curious to understand the reason why it does not. I had a quick look at the MBR'S you sent, BOTH are a bit "strange", the one of the Hard Disk has a non active primary NTFS partition starting at CHS 0/1/3 (normal should be 0/1/1) and with 65 hidden sectors, plus an active second primary partition, as well NTFS, and the Extended partition. The MBR of the stick seems to have been formatted with a CHS geometry of n/255/63 (correct) but with the active 0B FAT32 partition starting at CHS 0/2/3 (normal should be 0/1/1) and with 128 hidden sectors. Out of curiosity, what did you use to partition/format the hard disk and stick? Used some "strange" bootmanager in the past? jaclaz

I don't think so. Drive letters are set in the Registry, if you do not install, you have no Registry. On the other hand, if you already installed, you are going to change the System drive letter, and this will NOT work, without LOTS of work, "normal" result is an unbootable system. Migrate.inf (and setupreg.hiv) are parsed during install, so you need to add the info for the drive there, so that it is "accepted" by Setup, and the Registry has the correct drive letter from the beginning. It's an old problem, there are some workarounds, see here: http://www.uwe-sieber.de/english.html jaclaz

If the drive has already been partitioned/formatted and has a MBR signature, you can use Migrate.inf to assign statically a letter to a partition. Info on this is on the 911CD Forum, currently down, but you can get the small batch by cdob from inside the USB Multiboot: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-XP-from-USB-f157.html http://www.msfn.org/board/How-to-install-X...SB-t111406.html Here is a Google Cache of the original thread: http://74.125.39.104/search?q=cache:vNxzCu...p%3Ft19663.html Browsing the "historical" thread: http://www.msfn.org/board/How-to-boot-inst...key-t61384.html You should be able to find some more info. jaclaz

OK, now it's better. As often does, the HP Utility created a 0C (FAT32 partition LBA mapped) with correct LBA values but wrong CHS ones. In other words, changing the partition type to 0B (FAT32 CHS mapped) may give wrong results. The FAT32 partition was formatted using the DOS bootsector (the one invoking WINBOOTSYS/IO.SYS). First thing to try is to add to the stick the DOS files (from a Win9x/Me bootdisk): IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS COMMAND.COM and see if it boots. A possible way to fix: 1) Open the MBR with Beeblebrox, and change current: 80-0C-0-1-1-979-254-63-63-15744960 to: 80-0C-0-1-1-979-254-63-63-15743637 to "balance" CHS and LBA 2) remove the stick 3) re-insert stick 4) Format it from the running OS 5) If running Vista, run bootsect.exe /nt52 <DriveLetter:> /force to change the bootsector code to the Windows NT/2K/XP/2003 one 6) Add to the stick: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM BOOT.INI 7) see if it boots. Another possible way: a. do ONLY steps 4) to 6) b. open the MBR with BEEBLEBROX and change from: 80-0B-etc. (if present) to 80-0C-etc. A third way, if the stick proves to boot from DOS: 1) copy to the stick BOOTPART.EXE: http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm 2) boot to the DOS on the stick 3) run: BOOTPART.EXE WINXP BOOT:C: 4) Add to the stick: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM BOOT.INI 7) see if it boots. A fourth way, if you are running Vista, is using the native diskpart as follows: diskpart list disk select disk <discnumber> clean create partition primary size=<size of usbstick> select partition 1 active format fs=fat32 assign exit then use bootsect.exe as previously detailed to create a bootsector invoking NTLDR. A fifth way (never tried it, mind you) could be to rename NTLDR to BOOTMGR, leaving the VISTA bootsector as is. If none of the above works, at the moment the only way out is to use (as provided in fuwi's batch) grub4dos as a workaround. jaclaz

Well, the problem is that I do not seem to understand fully your report. How I get it: 1) you had a stick working perfectly on many computers 2) you added the Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver to one computer (installing it to an Operating System on that computer) 3) you never connected this USB stick to that computer while the Filter Driver was installed 4) you removed the Filter Driver from the OS on that computer 5) since you did the above the USB stick does not boot anymore on that computer What I am missing is whether the stick continues working allright on all the other computers or not. If the above summary is incorrect in any way, please post more details and supply the missing parts. Now, as I see it, NOTHING in the installing or uninstalling of any software, let alone a Filter Driver, to an OS can alter the way a motherboard boots from USB, you should be able to physically disconnect altogether the HD where the OS was installed or wipe it and the USB booting should work as well. So the possibilities I see are just three: 1) some settings have changed in the BIOS of that computer, due to unknown reasons 2) something has changed in the USB stick, due to unknown reasons 3) something else, again due to unknown reasons has happened About the last point, it could be: 1) having added any other hardware to the computer, an internal card or an extrernal device, even a USB hub 2) using another USB port (usually those on the back, soldered to the motherboard, are more reliable then front ones 3) some hardware malfunctioning jaclaz

P.S.: To make you happy, if you also add the MBR of your internal hard disk, I will have a look at it as well. jaclaz

Sure, I will try and help you as much as I can, but we must start on a new basis: 1) A filter driver CANNOT in ANY way alter a MBR by itself 2) The MBR of internal hard disk has NO connection whatever to USB booting 3) Some action performed by the user or by some software WHILE the Filter Driver was installed may have altered something Once you agree (or simply fake agreeing ) to the above we can start trying to work out what could it be. First things that should be verified: 1) The MBR of the USB stick 2) The BCD store on the USB stick To get a copy of the MBR of the stick use HDhacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ (you want to point it to the appropriate PhysicalDrive) Can you zip them in an archive and post it here? jaclaz

I will repeat myself, do zero out first 100 sectors of the device Try running fuwi's batch. (running it WITHOUT zeroing out the first sectors is NOT what I want, I need it run on a zeroed out stick) DO NOT RUN ANYTHING ELSE. Post the MBR and bootsector resulting from the above procedure, NOT those coming from ANY OTHER procedure. This is the ONLY way I can: 1) make sure that no leftovers cause problems 2) that the batch did it's work properly jaclaz

I will repeat myself, do zero out first 100 sectors of the device Try running fuwi's batch. (running it WITHOUT zeroing out the first sectors is NOT what I want, I need it run on a zeroed out stick) DO NOT RUN ANYTHING ELSE. Post the MBR and bootsector resulting from the above procedure, NOT those coming from ANY OTHER procedure. This is the ONLY way I can: 1) make sure that no leftovers cause problems 2) that the batch did it's work properly jaclaz

The MBR appears to be OK, it is a 16 Gb stick formatted as FAT32 0B, i.e. CHS mapped. The bootsector appears to have both invalid data and to be non-standard. WHAT did you use to try and format it? It appears like you used an Acronis product on the stick. I would zero out the first, say, 100 sectors (just to make sure) then try running fuwi's newish batch/app: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=21702 Please report. jaclaz

Well, apart from the wrong sub-forum, there is also a wrong "object". We are talking here about the Hitachi Microdrive Filter Driver, not about an actual Hitachi (or other brand) Microdrive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microdrive jaclaz

If the problem is just that of removing all partitions, all you need is to "zero out" the MBR partition table. Have you any bootable media (like a BartPE, a boot Dos floppy or CD or anything like that)? Or is the laptop currently booting? To what OS? If you can boot to a NT/2K/XP/Vista or some kind of PE, all you have to do is use MBRFIX: http://www.sysint.no/nedlasting/mbrfix.htm Download from here: http://www.sysint.no/Download/tabid/162/la...US/Default.aspx jaclaz

Can we have a look at your tests and results? Self-confidence is, a I see it, an interesting character trait, strictly related to enthusiasm: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enthusiasm but in some occasions one may unwantingly overdo it, maybe the "always" could be downsized to "often" WHICH recent studies? Care to give us a link to them? jaclaz

Besides the fact that, as already pointed out, this is a 6 years old thread about AVG 6.0 , may I point out that actually installing an antivirus on a system suspected to be infected may trigger a destructive reaction from really nasty malwares/virii? Or at least you have no guarantee that the (already loaded) hypothetical virus may not affect the installation or the working of the antivirus you are installing. The correct procedure would be that of scanning the drive(s) OFFLINE, using a PE bootdisk or slaving the drive to a working PC. jaclaz

Well, NO. Anyone would be pleased to see your modified VistaPE winbuilder .scripts , but uploading (read distributing) a pre-built image would not be legal. BTW, did you check the PE 2.1 project by allanf : http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ic=4431&hl= There are several interesting points in it. jaclaz

@TheUrbanMyth Then, you might be interested in these: http://www.msfn.org/board/tiny-fast-functi...fra-t92895.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Defragment-Program-t85812.html the defragging topic appears to be one (just like the NTFS vs. FAT32, the XP vs. 98, the Godzilla vs. Mickey Mouse and, lately, the Vista vs. XP) of those where people tend to heat up a bit. If Jeremy decided to take some time apart from Diskeeper..... ... and Zxian appears to be now more on the side of PerfectDisk.... ....there may be reasons. Myself, and for personal use, being admittedly cheap tend to prefer Freeware/Open Source anyway, living with the small limitations this choice may have. Cheers, jaclaz

Cannot say, post the error you are getting on the original thread. It is reported to be working on both Vista and PE, but maybe it is PE 1.x, i.e. XP/Server2003 based and not PE 2.x, i.e. Vista based. You can try using Dependency Walker on it and see if anything is missing in your environment. jaclaz