jaclaz

In a nutshell: products from Symantec were exceptionally good until a few years ago, when they started to be affected by bloat, that had made them resource and disk space hoggers. Curiously enough the "Corporate" varsion of some of their products appear to be lighter than corresponding "Consumer" ones. Symantec products have traditionally used undocumented features of the OS where they are installed, that as well traditionally the good guys at MS keep changing, thus creating the potential for chaos. A couple of links that might interest you: http://www.msfn.org/board/SP3-registry-cor...on-t118290.html http://www.computergripes.com/symantec.html jaclaz

First thing I would do is checking WHAT is in line 1747 of d:\xpsprtm\base\boot\setup\oemdisk.c Can you post a snippet of the file (from a couple of lines before to a couple of lines after line 1747) with line numbers? jaclaz

I had a quick look to: 311561usa8.exe For the record, it appears to be a CAB self-extracting archive, with a stub of 67224 bytes. Search in it with a hex editor, for "PMSCF" the "P" is the last byte of the stub, "MSCF" is the header of the CAB. Once you remove the first 67224 (and possibly change the extension to CAB), it should be uncompressable with "normal" EXTRACT.EXE. (did not test personally) Contents are these: 01/12/2001 11.06 1.368 1998UN.INF 01/12/2001 11.03 1.378 2222UN.INF 01/12/2001 10.55 765 311561UP.INF 01/12/2001 11.01 2.568 98G_chk.INF 03/12/2001 12.47 2.572 98SE_chk.INF 11/12/1997 05.33 80.864 ADVPACK.DLL 12/08/1998 20.32 16.896 csetup.exe 27/07/1998 14.48 36.864 qfecheck.exe 09/02/1996 17.28 8.042 qfecheck.hlp 04/12/1997 12.02 2.272 W95INF16.DLL 04/12/1997 12.02 4.608 W95INF32.DLL 30/11/2001 15.31 222.670 winboot.98g 01/12/2001 09.37 222.670 winboot.98s The two winboot.98x should be IO.SYS renamed for Gold and SE. jaclaz

frogman2008 We are not (yet ) mind readers, please post some details, like what hardware you are using, USB flash stick or Hard disk, which version of Windows, etc. Also, please post the contents of the BOOT.INI on your hard disk (the internal one). jaclaz

So, maybe the answer is "25", not "42" Thanks for the link, very interesting. jaclaz

Wouldn't a "count if" function do? http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/count-if.htm jaclaz

Though being completely and utterly a "home" user, I find that a Commercial version may be useful, I happen to have friends that would need nlite to speed up things at work, so, even if not directly affected by the "Personal use only", I agree with this petition idea. For what I can see, there are ANYWAY a number of people using nlite in a corporate environnment, ignoring the License Agreement, a few even come here for help: http://www.msfn.org/board/usb-drivers-prob...te-t112812.html http://www.msfn.org/board/W2K3-SP2-integration-t113576.html But still, I perfectly understand the reasons that prevents Nuhi from such a step: http://www.msfn.org/board/Question-Regardi...ses-t71566.html http://www.msfn.org/board/Alternative-to-nLite-t110615.html (essentially exclude ANY liability whatsoever) Maybe some "personal user" which is in his professional career a lawyer may give us (and Nuhi) some advice on this aspect, or some prospective BIG "corporate user" may want to pay one and publish his advice. jaclaz

Go to the homepage: http://www.autogk.me.uk/ and check the downloads listed there: http://www.autogk.me.uk/modules.php?name=Downloads jaclaz

Well, usually running a CHKDSK /R solves this kind of problems for free. Of course you need to run it from a PE of some kind or from Recovery Console booted from external media, CD-ROM or USB stick/hd, even the XP install CD-ROM allows to boot to Recovery Console. Of course, you should have a backup of the data.... ...I find Spinrite a very good app, as you say it's a bit expensive, and there are other solutions to recover data from supposedly bad sectors/clusters....and to re-format properly. I find that the real problems in these cases are DYI jobs made by not enough expert users or by the "neighboor's son which is a computer wiz" . If you care about data on your hard disks, backup. Even if you don't, backup as well. In case of doubt, backup. Once you have NOT backed up your data, the price of ANY recovery software is nothing when compared to the loss of (say) the documents it took weeks to write, the photos from your family's last three years holidays, etc. In these cases, if you feel not confident enough to attempt a recovery by yourself, ask for help BEFORE attempting it. Even if you feel confident enough, ask for help about ANY doubt you may have, even little or apparently marginal ones, BEFORE attempting the recovery. And consider the idea, depending on the value you attribute to data on the drive, to ask a professional consultant and/or data recovery company for a price, BEFORE attempting the recovery. jaclaz

Well, the idea is that you try UNIATA, if it does not work, you try posting there, and maybe you get help. Two possible scenario's explaining why there are no specific posts yet: 1) UNIATA release actually usable by final users is relatively recent 2) UNIATA gives no problems whatsoever 3) users of UNIATA are computer savvy enough to solve their problems by themselves 4) people which would have time enough to post there, use instead their time to comment the lack of posts (I'll share a secret with you: Boards start empty, and are filled later by the users' posts ) ...go try helping people... jaclaz

Hmmm, usually we prefer facts.... jaclaz

Yep, and just for the record, UNIATA forum is here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showforum=60 jaclaz

Yes , programmers should also think about we "poor" users of Opera, Firefox, Konqueror.... jaclaz

Latest version is here: Mingw32: http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/tools/win32/ Cygwin: http://www.student.tugraz.at/thomas.plank/ The Cygwin version should be better/more up to date. http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20988 You can ignore all warnings, but the Windows 98 won't work if you use MSCDEX to access the DVD, you need to use SHSUCDX: http://www.geocities.com/jadoxa/shsucdx/index.html (MSCDEX can read isolevel 3 but NOT isolevel 4 - read iso9660:2): the -max-iso9660-filenames should not be needed jaclaz

It's not so easy. The most "controversial" or "conflicting" settings are "isolevel 3" vs. "isolevel 4": http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18088 and joliet extensions vs. Rock Ridge ones: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=10950 You may also want to use The_GUI initially: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16997 Moreover when doing a DVD, it is possible that some needed files are written to the disc "beyond reach" of the bootloader (either the CD one or of the specific OS loader like setupldr.bin) http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20248 Base start from here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Super-Disc-Multi...-Us-t94398.html jaclaz

..and if we are talking about READER and lightweight files, there is a "third way": SUMATRAPDF http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/ completely and utterly portable. jaclaz

Not what you asked, but this is how I would do that in batch: ... REM routine to set variable found_something REM If found SP2 SET /A found_something=20 REM If found SP3 SET /A found_something=30 REM If found IE6 SET /A found_something=%found_something%+6 REM If found IE7 SET /A found_something=%found_something%+7 GOTO :found%found_something% :found37 ECHO remove sp3, then remove ie7, reinstall sp3 GOTO :EOF :found27 ECHO remove ie7 then install sp3 GOTO :EOF :found36 ECHO no further action needed GOTO :EOF :found26 ECHO please install sp3 GOTO :EOF jaclaz

If any feature does not work it means you removed too much. Without knowing IN DETAIL which guide/tutorial/app you used, and EXACTLY which steps you took, it is really difficult to help you. At first glance it could be some problem in the Registry for "right click menu" and default action.... but I guess noone can say for sure, I seem to remember that also a missing registration of SHELL32.DLL could cause this kind of problems. jaclaz

You cannot say it's missing , as it is not on THAT screen (but after License Agreeement), do read here, it is Red and bolded: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm jaclaz

talk about overkill. do you use dynamite for swatting flies too? you should douse the HD in kerosene, light it on fire and drill a few holes through it to make sure you get Vista off entirely. sheesh the XP disc would have formatted the hard disc just fine (assuming you load the proper drivers first) FYI, this method of partitioning has a number of estimators: http://members.aol.com/spoons1000/break/index.html jaclaz

I already try it. I try it with both Linux and Windows PE and it was the same i.e. no boot Maybe you did not try hard enough. Read FAQ's #4 and #10 here: http://home.graffiti.net/jaclaz:graffiti.n...SB/USBfaqs.html Please note that there are TWO versions of the "HP" USB formatting utility around, the elder one (2.0.6) appears to always make the partition active, the newer one (2.1.8) appear to be failing to do so. In case use Beeblebrox: http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/ to set it as active (replace 00 with 80 in boot field) It is also possible (but yours would be the FIRST report I've ever seen ) that the BIOS checks for the "Removable" bit on the device controller, depending on manufacturer and model of your USB stick (actually of it's controller) it may be possible to "flip" that bit in such a way that the USB stick will be seen as USB HD ("Fixed" device). jaclaz

Here is a good starting place: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=15598 http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showforum=53 jaclaz

Easier would be to use grub4dos instead of syslinux. Syslinux relies on bootsectors to boot different systems, grub4dos can directly chainload loaders or system files. Instead of using the "full fledged" USB Multiboot, just read the howto and get what you need: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089 If you are determined to use syslinux, use this tutorial: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=18846&hl= jaclaz

Really? We hadn't thought about that: If you still have that disk, and it has a "readable" \I386 directory, it's easy to make a bootable CD out of it, possibly also slipstrreaming to it latest service pack You can extract the boot image from your "scratched" disk, or get one searching around. Tool to extract boot image: http://www.nu2.nu/bbie/ Tutorials: http://web.archive.org/web/20050318033100/bink.nu/bootcd/ http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894950/en-us jaclaz jaclaz

I have the impression that one thing is "dealing" with large FAT32 volumes and another one is "booting" from them. On such a big partition the NTLDR may have been somehow written in a part of the partition not reachable by the bootsector code, or the bootsector code may "go beserk" because of the size of the partiion in the LBA address in partition table. What I would try: 1) re-format the FAT32 partition 2) boot from a floppy or CD and copy to it just: NTLDR NTDETECT.COM BOOT.INI (you should have a BOOT.INI with at least two entries in order to see it when booting) (in this order) 3) try booting from it If you get to see the BOOT.INI choices, you can then re-try installing XP. Another possible workaround would be to copy to the partition grldr and menu.lst from grub4dos: http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome/ http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome/grub4dos-...-2008-05-14.zip? AND install the grldr.mbr to the MBR. Then you can try chainloading the NTLDR bypassing the bootsector. grub4dos mbr has a "more sophisticated" filesystem access, and may succeed where standard bootsector code fails. The problem is definitely in the bootsector->NTLDR part, the "NTLDR is missing" comes from bootsector, so thaat MBR->bootsector part should be OK. Use hdhacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ or a disk/hex editor to save the bootsector of that partition, compress it in a .zip file and attach it to your next post, I'll have a looj at it and see if I can find anything wrong with it. jaclaz