jaclaz

NO, DO NOT format your C:\ drive, for two reasons: 1) It is not necessary, you can just delete all the previous XP related files and delete from BOOT.INI the entry XP related 2) By formatting the C:\ drive (aka First drive first active partition) you will also delete the three files: BOOT.INI NTLDR NTDETECT.COM (and maybe also NTBOOTDD.SYS and BOOTFONT.BIN) that are needed to boot your install of 2003 on F:\ as well jaclaz

OK, STOP fiddling with the drive NOW. NEVER, NEVER and I mean NEVER use a win9x utility on a later OS formatted/partitioned HD unless you know what you are doing. Try using TESTDISK: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk (the DOS version from your Win98 "side") to ONLY check what it sees and report. If you are lucky the corruption may be limited to MBR/partition table only and thus fixable by TESTDISK. Generally speaking, when you have such "random" letters on a drive name, there can also be a problem with the connection of the hard disk, trying re-seating the cable connectors or, better even, change the cable with a spare one, it won't make any harm anyway. jaclaz

Sure, it works, it used to be a product by Datapol, later acquired by Avira and now left "as is" and unsupported. Just do a google search for "NTFS4dos jaclaz" (without quotes) and you will find a number of threads here on MSFN and on 911cd about it. jaclaz

I said: What I meant was that if you have a file: and the same file in: once you have "unified" the drives, to, say, D:\ and you always save that file as "D:\somedocs\somedir\foo.txt", you will have your problems solved, but if you have the same file in and in once you have "unified" the drives you will have anyway TWO files: and jaclaz

I think it must something else I only use on my machines Win2K, not necessarily updated to lates SP, and access and transfer to/from USB device is definitely faster than that I find on ANY of the (XP) PC's I find at my various customer's offices, usually way more fast/powerful than the laptop(s) I use. I would be interested in more details from you (hardware, both of PC and USB device, antivirus/firewall/antyspyware you use, and so on)... jaclaz

Cannot say if it works on Win9x systems, but on heavily "lited" 2K/Xp's the solution is usually that of using xCHM: http://xchm.sourceforge.net/ http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.p...ckage_id=171760 jaclaz

The XP SP2 RAMDISK.SYS (which should be the same as Server2003) is however limited to 512 Mbytes. Question is WHY you want to use exactly that ramdisk? I mean, there are freeware ones, most notably IMDISK: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showforum=59 that have more options, a CPL applet, or are however better configurable, like the Gavotte one that supports up to 2, 3 or 4 Gb. A list can be found here: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=1507 jaclaz

Well, FREEGem is NOT an open source operating system, it is a GUI SHELL for DOS: http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/Faq.txt http://www.owenrudge.net/GEM/ It is true that windows 3.x was as well a GUI SHELL for DOS, and that even WIN9x is partly just a SHELL, but FreeGem/Opengem have no intention to introduce "compatible with Windows" apps. If you are interested in resurrecting Win3.x, you might be interested in this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16754 (in the thread there are also references to some alternative SHELLs for DOS) and latest minibox related thread: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=623 jaclaz

And what bootsector for the CD did you use? If you "simply" copied all the modified files, you "simply" made a NON-bootable CD, which of course makes it highly improbable that will be ever capable of boot anything. WHICH software did you try (unsuccessfully) to burn the .iso image? WHICH software do you have (and used to burn just the files)? Please try burning the .iso file made by nlite (NOT it's contents) with this Freeware app: IMAGEBURN: http://www.imgburn.com/ jaclaz

I think that you also need the "WIN51IP.SP1". Besides, it can also be a "bad burn", try re-creating the CD using the LOWEST possible write speed your CD burner has. At first sight your WINNT.SIF file appears correct, the only thing that is "different from standard" I can spot is the ";" ending the OemPnPDriversPath but cannot say if it can cause the problem jaclaz

Maybe COMPLETELY unrelated, but EDXOR, a small text editing app, has a "special" riched20.dll as t gave problems, see here: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/fr...eware/edxor.htm (download the "[133kB] system component fix") jaclaz

Happy it worked. jaclaz

Not exactly what you asked for, but you may find the Universal driver UNIVBE: http://www.geocities.com/bearwindows/vbemp.htm http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showforum=60 much more suitable. jaclaz

There already is an app that should automate the install to USB hard disk http://www.usboot.org/tiki-page.php?pageName=Welcome For the "manual" way, check also this tutorial: http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176 And, if the above do not work/are not exactly the way you want it, do check the other tutorials by Dietmar, links are in his signature: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14181 jaclaz

Tag files. See these: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...16381&st=18 http://www.msfn.org/board/Edit-txtsetupsif...N51-t65541.html http://www.msfn.org/board/XP-SP2-bootable-...ve-t111302.html jaclaz

Off Topic, but not much, there is still this question open: http://www.msfn.org/board/Install-Vista-US...6.html&st=5 It's actually my fault, I completely forgot that, but since I will be prolly busy for the next couple of weeks, if there is any taker, I would be only too happy.... jaclaz

Not yet, x64 is not fully working, but ilko_t is working on it: http://www.msfn.org/board/XP-x64-Install-t114022.html Hopefully it will soon be possible. jaclaz

Very good! Just think how much money people will save by avoiding to buy a second USB stick! Another small victory against the ever increasing entropy. jaclaz

I sincerely doubt that anything is wrong with your install, it seems to me that you still have a mis-formatted/fdisked USB device. There has been a few reports that in some occasions to "refresh" correctly a USB stick it has been needed to "zero" out the initial sectors, but this has never been the case with USB hard disks. Can you download HDhacker: http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/ and backup both the MBR (Physical disk) and bootsector (logical disk) of first active partition of the USB disk? Compress the two files together in a .zip and attach them, I'll have a look at them and see if I can find what is wrong with them. jaclaz

FYI, read this: http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...c=21204&hl= jaclaz

After all I wasn't too far off the road. Very good! Yes, but since andy_le2k already has/wants to have a BartPE..... But still noone has been documenting the minimal PE files needed to run successfully WINN32.... jaclaz

For the record, what I suggested lately was NOT to rename ANYTHING: Sure the above is not the "best" way, but "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" Another possibility, that noone has fully explored AFAIK is method #2 in my post here: http://www.msfn.org/board/Installing-Unatt...8.html&st=6 I am pretty sure that a very small PE build, probably in the 20 to 40 Mb range should be able to run correctly WINNT32, thus allowing a "real" Windows NT/2K/XP/2003 install from ANY source. jaclaz

Generally speaking, two different installs of XP use, say, 95% of the same files. Now, if you use the normal USBmultiboot setup, and image/backup the resulting install directories, then re-use USBmultiboot for the different install, you can make a compare/diff between the two copies. Nothing prevents you from having two directories anywhere on the stick, like: \setup01 and \setup02 containing the ONLY the files that change between the two versions of setup. Then you boot from the PE on the stick (or also from a DOS flavour) and simply copy the files in one of the two setup directories overwriting those already in $WIN_NT$.~BT or $WIN_NT$.~LS, writing a simple batch for doing the above should be trivial. Sure, you cannot choose at boot whether you instal setup01 or setup02, but making the switch should not be difficult, it's just a reboot and a few xcopy/robocopy commands away. Strings $WIN_NT$.~BT and $WIN_NT$.~LS are hardcoded in SETUPLDR.BIN, though I don't remember anyone previously experimenting with this, it should be perfectly possible to hexedit SETUPLDR.BIN jsut like we do for \I386 or \minint. jaclaz

Hmmm, and AFAIK the resulting CD will ONLY be readable on the same drive or on another identical one.... ...an entire new meaning to the word "portability"... jaclaz

Hey, people, take it easy. There has been some misunderstanding that led to incomprehensions. The misunderstanding is over. The incomprehensions also. Things have been fixed, nobody was hurt (seriously) in the making of this thread . No need to make a case out of it. Just let's call it over. jaclaz